These days, a happy gamer is a bit of an oxymoron. No matter the franchise, there will always be something people will complain about and now, it’s Diablo 4’s turn in the critical firing line. While critics have given it generally high reviews, fans have not and now the gap between the two is fueling boycott calls.
For those who have not checked out the Metacritic page for the latest role-playing game release from Blizzard Entertainment, it is at an 86 percent fresh average from critics and a 4.9 out of 10 from fans as of this story’s filing. A lot of the controversy appears to stem from a recent patch to the game which players say has nerfed their character builds and some argue directs those playing toward the game’s monetization aspects. Over on Reddit, a post saying people need to ignore the product is sparking a wide array of discourse and, for one fan, it will likely not do anything given the history of past boycott calls.
Indeed, despite Diablo Immortal being one of Blizzard’s worst reviewed games when it released in 2022, it quickly became one of the company’s biggest launches of all time and the most successful game in the Diablo series up to that point. More recent boycott calls which did not bear fruit included the one surrounding the release of Hogwarts Legacy and, before these, several people have pledged to boycott the Call of Duty series at different points only to be seen online playing it later to the amusement of many. Elsewhere in the discourse, another fan points out many of the game’s players are casual and will not care about a patch as much as these folks do while one critic says serious fans may make a big dent.
What will ultimately happen does of course remain to be seen. Blizzard does not appear to have responded to the backlash as of this story’s filing, and, historically, games which see a patch or controversial choice implemented do not always have that patch or choice removed. The only one this writer can remember is for Mass Effect 3’s ending, and, even then, that did not radically overhaul things.