Diablo 4's Vessel of Hate mercenaries take two steps forward and one step back

Key points

• Diablo 4 introduces mercenaries with unique personalities, missions, and skill trees, but lacks gear customization.
• Mercenaries enhance the gameplay experience by providing various options for solo and group play.
• Despite the improvements, Diablo 4's Mercenaries fall short compared to Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 due to a lack of equipment slots.

Just like many other action RPGs before it, including the Diablo series itself, Diablo 4The Vessel of Hatred expansion has arrived with a new addition in the form of companions that players can bring on their journey through Sanctuary. These NPCs are called Mercenaries, just like those of Diablo2 AND Diablo 2: Risenand follow in the footsteps of their previous iterations in several ways, but also distance themselves from everyone else. For example, Diablo 4Mercenaries have unique personalities, stories and missions associated with them and the process to unlock them. Mercenaries can be used in two different ways, namely as companions for single players or as reinforcements, but in both cases they lack a crucial element Diablo2 AND Diablo 3 characteristic.

Diablo 4The Mercenaries version is very good in terms of missions, introduction, voice acting, character models and even where they can be found once unlocked: The Den in Nahantu. On top of that, they also have their own skill trees to improve their abilities as players spend time with them, making them feel like an integral part of the journey, because you can choose who should accompany them, when, and for how long. . Despite all the improvements, Mercenaries fall short in one key area: equipment.

Diablo 4's mercenaries are a huge improvement in all but one department

Diablo 4: Jar of Hatred Mercenaries Explained

Diablo 4The Mercenaries of the Vessel of Hate are easily the most polished version of the series so far, which is nice to see, especially because D2 AND Q3 they both had these companions and provided different experiences with them. However, inside Diablo 4players can't do something previous games allowed them to do: give equipment to the Mercenaries. This limits interactions with mercenaries, and players cannot see their inventory and improve it over time outside of the skill tree.

As much as the skill tree is a nice addition and a good way to progress these characters, it provides a general direction for characters to go when it comes to their usefulness in battle, but giving them gear suited to skills and styles of specific game. . This could have easily made them the best version of this system yet, but unfortunately it's not part of the game. The Mercenary and Reinforcement categories help make the gameplay more varied, since playing alone means that you can always have a Mercenary on the field, with Diablo 4Reinforcements also come to the rescue from time to time in group games, using a skill chosen by the players. This allows fans to play around with the various options to have the best tools for their specific builds or content. However, the lack of equipment slots for Mercenaries still stings.

Diablo 4's mercenaries fail to hold a candle to Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 in one key area

For example, Diablo2Mercenaries are act-based in terms of when and where they can be hired, and hiring them costs Gold. They are not unique when it comes to personalities and patterns outside of their category, which can be blocked with lenses. However, players can provide equipment to mercenaries to make them stronger. Likewise, Diablo 3Followers have equipment slots like the player character and also give players bonuses based on the items they have equipped thanks to the Emanate system.

In Diablo 3, some Followers can grant players a cheat death effect, which is especially great for Hardcore, but is quite powerful in Standard as well. This is absent in Diablo 4.

Give Mercenaries access to equipment Diablo 4 it would have been a win-win scenario, both because it would have granted these followers greater utility and power over time, and because every item dropped into the game would have been potentially useful even if the player character didn't need it. However, the fact that Mercenaries cannot be provided with equipment in Vessel of Hatred does not mean that this will never be the case in Diablo 4and as the base game shows, with the addition of over a year of quality of life improvements and features, mercenaries could still receive loot in the future.