Diablo 4 has been on Steam for less than 24 hours and has already fallen to a ‘mixed’ rating. Many of the reviews are directed at Blizzard as a company rather than the game.
Diablo 4 Season of Blood is here and coinciding with that is the game’s launch on Steam. Unfortunately for Blizzard, however, the opening hours of Season 2 were plagued by issues with its Battle Pass and Seasonal Journey progression.
This comes on the heels of a near slide into irrelevance with Diablo 4 hitting under 1,000 Twitch viewers. Despite these issues, many players have praised the changes in the game’s second season and expressed hope for its future.
You could be forgiven for assuming that the hiccups surrounding the Season 2 launch were the reason for a deluge of unfavorable Steam reviews for Diablo 4. A closer look reveals that most of the negative criticism revolves around the game’s live-service model and microtransactions.
Despite being on Steam for less than a day, Diablo 4 has already fallen to a 6/10 score on the platform. Players have bombarded the site with poor ratings for the game.
“It’s a $70 game with micro-transactions on top of a Battle Pass,” one player wrote. “You can get much better games for this amount with much more content.”
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Others echoed similar sentiments but the game’s performance also took a hit. “1500 ping solo in the open world, without an option to play offline” a disgruntled user put forth. “Framerate dips to 24fps no matter what my settings are. I hate you, Blizzard.”
Some players were so frustrated with their playthroughs on other platforms, they went the extra mile to voice their grievances on Steam. “I purchased the game a second time just to write a review on how terrible the rubber banding is,” one explained.
Sifting through a tide of red thumbs-down icons, many of the reviews seem to be various memes disparaging Blizzard. A few positive reviews have emerged, primarily praising the new target farming of end-game bosses.
It’s unknown whether these reviews are impacting Diablo 4’s less-than-stellar launch on Steam. The game’s peak player count currently sits at 5,429 which is decidedly low for a AAA RPG from a developer of Blizzard’s size.