"This is Diablo 4 as it should have originally been released": Blizzard's action-RPG continues its very uneven trajectory with huge praise for Season 4

Diablo 4 Season 4 has just gone live, and it looks like yet another redemption story for Blizzard's ongoing ARPG.

Diablo 4 has been a tale of peaks and valleys since launch last year. The game launched to player and critical acclaim, before everything went up in the smoke with some contentious pre-Season 1 changes. Things seemed to stabilize in Season 2, before Season 3 launched to mass criticism, with players lamenting "boring" traps and a "useless" companion to boot.

In yet another twist, Season 4: Season of Loot is going down a treat right after launch with players. "After not playing for almost 8 months this game is hardly recognizable and I am having a lot more fun," the first Reddit post just below reads of Season 4, adding that Blizzard's developers have done a "good job cleaning the game up over the months."

Diablo 4 is so much better now. from r/diablo4

The post below praises Season 4 as the "best start to the season I have played," adding that it "explodes everywhere" and "this is Diablo 4 as it should have originally been released." This is big praise from someone who has consistently played every Diablo 4 season to date, and has seen the highs and lows first-hand for themselves every few months. 

Best Season start so far, thanks blizzard from r/diablo4

But what's actually so good about the new season? One Reddit post points to the new Diablo 4 Helltide boss as evidence of just how good things are now, a fight that walks a fine line between being difficult but not frustrating for scores of players to battle at once. "So much fun, I've never felt such a sense of community in a diablo game before. Cannot wait to play more tomorrow!" the player writes. 

Diablo 4's Season 4 was always billed as a huge overhaul for the ARPG - so huge that it required the first public test realm server since launch last year, a staple of other Diablo games in years gone by. Diablo 4 will "probably" get more PTR servers in the future, according to one Blizzard developer recently, and I can only imagine Season 4's excellent launch has hastened this approach.

Diablo 4 lead says "obvious" bad ideas used to "fall through the cracks" because the devs didn't fully realize "doing this 2,000 times is actually terrible."