My first piece of advice: take your time with your character choice. I plunged into my life as a Barbarian, and I wouldn’t recommend a class so dependent on close-quarter melee combat in a game that makes that very difficult as it gets deeper into its story. When Bob the Barbarian is retired, I’ll be a little sad to see him go, but I’m also eager to explore the other classes of Druid, Necromancer, Rogue, and Sorcerer—all of whom I believe won’t struggle so much with giant demons with large reaches.
Once you pick a class and customize your appearance, you’re off to explore the five regions of this world known as Sanctuary: Scosglen, Fractured Peaks, Dry Steppes, Hawezar, and Kehjistan. All five have a similar top-down aesthetic with variations in climate and the enemies that live there. For example, Dry Steppes is an arid wasteland populated with scorpions and cannibals; Hawezar is a swamp with bugs and witches who want you dead. Each of these regions contains cities where you can find some refuge, vendors, and often side quests that typically consist of helping local citizens. They also mark fast travel spots to get you around the massive world of this map, one that feels like it hides a deadly secret around every corner.
“Diablo IV” is a game of repetition—farming dungeons for XP and better weapons/armor with which to continue hunting for more loot and power—but it has a surprisingly rich, detailed story this time. Set a half-century before the action of “Diablo III: Reaper of Souls,” an expansion pack for the last full game that was released in 2014, “Diablo IV” is the story of Lilith (voiced by Caroline Faber), the daughter of Mephisto himself. She rules over a land called Sanctuary, a dark place that’s stuck between Heaven and Hell, although closer to the latter.