Diablo 4 Season 8 review: An enjoyable but quickly repetitive battle against Belial's forces

Diablo 4 Season 8’s arrival has brought a lot of discussion about what Blizzard Entertainment offers its players, so let’s talk about it. This season brought with it some major changes, or at least, that’s what was discussed. An overall increase in difficulty and some adjustments to how content is delivered through the Battle Pass system. Now called Reliquaries, the system is divided into sections, where players can pay for the type of cosmetics they want.

The theme of the season surrounds Belial, Lord of Lies, and his attempt to return to Sanctuary. I figured it was only a matter of time before he returned, but it would be closer to an expansion than this. While overall, I do enjoy Diablo 4 Season 8 and have been playing a significant amount of it this week, I do think there are still some areas where improvements could be made.

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Diablo 4 Season 8 continues the trend of “Borrowed Powers”, but there was room for improvement

Diablo 4 Season 8 isn’t some great outlier — yes, we’re back with more borrowed powers, and I’m fine with that. In fact, I liked the idea of unlocking boss powers to use. Sure, they required you to use your own, normal powers to trigger, but that’s also a system I’m fine with. I found the ones that worked the best with my Minion Necromancer build quickly, and I was off to the races.

I do have to say that, while I enjoy borrowed power, when it's interesting, it's been eight seasons of that so far. I think perhaps Blizzard should look to some of the successful seasons Path of Exile has had for inspiration. One of them required you to build and manage a town, while also slaughtering the forces of evil. Now that was interesting.

Grigoire's Lightning is really what made my build move - but I'd like the Laser Beams too (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

However, the problem kicked in for me pretty quickly. This was just more Legion events, reskinned. The timer wasn’t the worst thing, because they pop up frequently, and it was not difficult to get to them and start unlocking boss powers. However, it got repetitive quickly. I would like to see multiple ways — or at least more than one — to have the important season events take place.

Yes, you can also get boss powers from World Bosses and Lair Bosses in Diablo 4 Season 8. But it just didn’t feel worth it after you have the majority of them. You had to keep doing the events to grind reputation and currency, but that’s it. It would be nice to have these events give you a chance to automatically level up the associated power, or something to that effect.

Kirma? May as well have been Kermit, with as much as they meant to this story. There wasn't anything that tied the new bosses to anything yet (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

The other part of this that really frustrated me was the generic, no-name bosses. There are quite a few bosses not just in Diablo 4, but across the other Diablo games. Belial could have shown off his real power and made us fight familiar faces again, getting more interesting powers as a result. I was fine with what was available, but I do think this would have been a marked improvement. However, one decision absolutely baffled me: Locking a Boss Power behind the Pinnacle Boss.

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Locking a Boss Power behind the Pinnacle Boss is a disappointing choice

There has to be a way to make the Pinnacle Boss worthwhile without locking a power behind it (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

There are several ways to encounter Belial, Lord of Lies in Diablo 4 Season 8. He shows up at the end of every Incursion Encounter, can pop up as an ambush after Lair Bosses, and is also the Pinnacle Boss. Two of those have their own boss powers, to boot. However, I’m not thrilled that one of the best boss powers in the game (Belial’s Eye Lasers) are locked behind the Pinnacle Boss.

It’s just a strange choice to me. Of course, I want the Diablo 4 Season 8 Pinnacle Boss to feel worthwhile, but when you supposedly ramp up the difficulty and lock one of the cooler powers behind the hardest boss in the game, that’s such a bizarre choice.

Most people I saw were just using the Wandering Death’s Chest Beam either way. I’m all for making content matter, but this isn’t a choice I agree with.

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The change to the boss ladder and looting bosses is the most important change to Diablo 4 Season 8

Whether grouping or solo, it felt worth it to pick up Uniques (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

However, this did lead to something I did not expect in Season 8 — more people using the Party Finder. I’ve never seen this much use of the Party Finder before. It was so easy to get groups to do Ladder Boss content, since more people means more loot. That, and people knew for sure that if someone joined, they had to contribute if they wanted gear.

This is the best change to the game so far. Now players are more willing to cooperate since they know that if someone doesn’t have the right materials, they’ve wasted their own time. I also really like that the bosses have been given a more defined tier system. You grind the first group to get materials for the second tier, and so on. It gives the endgame a bit more structure, and I like that.

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The difficulty isn’t as bad as rumored to be for Diablo 4 Season 8

It's been way easier to find a party to do content in Diablo 4 Season 8 (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

In my estimation, the difficulty tuning isn’t so bad for Diablo 4 Season 8. Once you get to Torment, it’s a noticeable jump in how hard you’re getting hit. I easily got into Torment I, and the shift to Torment II did take a little bit of grinding, but it was worth it to see my character feel like they were genuinely getting stronger.

I imagine some players grinded harder, and are already in Torment IV, and that’s great for them. I was worried that it would feel impossible to get into the game's hardest content if I wanted to. I do think that the better your build is, the better you know your class, the easier a time you will have.

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The shift from the Battle Pass to the Reliquary ultimately gives fewer rewards

The Reliquaries are still in need of some fine tuning (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Unfortunately, while I have many positive thoughts about Diablo 4 Season 8’s presentation and delivery, I’m not a big fan of the Reliquary system. I do like that you can pick what you want, and that the price more or less seems to be the same, but it feels like there are significantly fewer rewards overall.

The original Battle Pass had 28 Free Rewards, but now we have 8. I liked their designs, but it didn’t feel as rewarding. The cost of the other Reliquaries wasn’t bad (Weapons, Armor, Beasts), but the amount of paid content has also gone down. From 62 “Paid Rewards”, down to 25 total.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am not a fan of Battle Passes/Paid cosmetics in retail games. If Diablo 4 were a free-to-play game, I’d have much less to say about it, provided the microtransactions were fair.

I think the Reliquary idea isn’t the worst idea, but I do think it needs some iteration, in the form of more rewards. The Deluxe Edition didn’t feel worth it, either. You unlock a cosmetic you’d inevitably unlock early, and you get wings and a pet. For 2800 Platinum ($25), I’d like to see more bang for my buck.

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Final thoughts

These fights are neat, but I've done them so many times now (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Honestly, I’ve enjoyed my time with Diablo 4 Season 8. While I am critical of it, and several of the changes, I still had fun! I’ve never grouped up with people more frequently than I have in Season 8, and that’s certainly a positive. The QoL changes and adjustments to difficulty, looting, and smoothing out progression were amazing changes. I’m incredibly happy to see these.

I also liked the Borrowed Powers for this season, though they could have used a little bit more work, in my estimation. The grind for leveling up the powers is tedious, but I do feel like the grind for reputation has been made a bit easier.

My sincere hope for future seasons beyond Diablo 4 Season 8 is that it's not just borrowed power every single time. There are so many cool things we can do with this world. Why just keep repeating it? It's clear that a loud group of fans is tired of doing the same thing every single season, just with a different coat of paint on it.

There's room for growth outside of borrowed powers and reskinned events (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

I hope Blizzard looks at the Reliquary system again and makes it have a bit more value. There are plenty of players who feel cheated by it, and I understand. I don’t really interact with the Battle Passes much because I don’t care for the system.

Perhaps the old system was fine, though. I would occasionally look and see what I unlocked, but I’ve always been more focused on the moment-to-moment gameplay over that. The Season of Belial’s Return is fun, but definitely would have been amazing had a few changes been made before launch.