I played a ton of Diablo 2. While I didn’t love Diablo 3, Reaper of Souls fixed a lot that was wrong with the game and ultimately made it the game I wanted Diablo 3 to be from the get-go. The full Diablo 3 experience is coming soon to the PlayStation 4 in the form of the Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition.
Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition is everything from the PC version, complete with Reaper of Souls and the Loot 2.0 system. But there's so much more that completely changes how the game works in the conversion from PC to PlayStation 4.
The first thing you'll probably notice is the new view. Since Ultimate Evil Edition has to be able to support two players on the same screen when playing locally, the view is a lot closer to the action, making it feel very reminiscent of Baldur's Gate — which is awesome! Something as simple as changing up the view makes a huge difference. It's more in your face and gets you closer to the action, but it also lets you take in the smoothness of the environment and how great the graphics are. Everything feels more polished, and even with tons of enemies surrounding you, framerate was exceptional and there was never any slowdown. Particles, player models, spell effects, everything is how you'd expect them to look coming over to the PlayStation 4.
The new camera angle also fits perfectly with the controls of the game. It feels a lot more like an action RPG with the PS4 controller than it ever did with the keyboard and mouse on PC. I plays a bit like a twinstick shooter, with the left stick controlling movement and the right stick aiming spells, and your spells being controlled by triggers and face buttons. I actually felt that I had more control over movement with the PS4 controller than I did on PC, but it took a little while to get aiming down.
Players all get their own assigned loot, too, but anyone can pick it up and it automatically goes to the correct player's inventory. Blizzard really thought of quality of life features when bringing the game to console. And little things like the light on the controller being the same color as the ring around your player are neat. Not to mention, every customization option on PC is present on the PS4, like if you want to see all damage or just crits, or if you want enemies' life bars up at all times.
Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition on the PlayStation 4 looks great, plays great, and feels like a whole new game. A game that I want to play. Local multiplayer is huge, as it harkens back to the days of Baldur's Gate when my friends and I would huddle around a TV and play for hours. Except this time the TV is a 60-inch LED 1080p Samsung and we're playing on the PS4. I own the game on PC, but I could totally see myself playing exclusively on the PlayStation 4 when it launches.
There's no release date yet, but Blizzard has said the game will be out on PS4 later in 2014. I tried to get a date, but they just smiled at me. They're good at that.
You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. He likes talking sports, video games, movies, and the stupidity of celebrities. Email at [email protected]
