Diablo 4 Season 4 Loot Reborn review: Super fun and full of redemption

After a disappointing Season 3 where it just wasn't as fun, Diablo 4's latest season, Loot Reborn, comes with a ton of quality of life and balance changes. But most importantly, it comes with the most important thing of all: FUN.

I can't stress just how much fun I've been having in just two days of playing since the season went live. While the biggest and most noticeable change is the revamped loot (but more on that later), the team behind the Diablo 4 live service game has done plenty of things to make levelling and hunting for the new loot exciting.

For one, Helltides is now a super fun non-stop action demon killing thing it should have been since day one.

As you venture into an area that's plagued by a Helltide, you'll find plenty of demons to kill. Every encounter suddenly turns into monsters spawning on top of you, and as your threat level gets higher and higher by killing them, more monsters will appear for you to kill, including minor bosses.

And it's not just about killing. Mobs drop plenty of Aberrant Cinders, and the pickup range is much improved such that after about a few minutes of killing, I had enough to open the chests in the area.

Even as I started running to open a chest, I would get attacked by a worm popping out from the ground, dropping monsters on top of me like Fremen attacking Sardukar. By the time I got to the chest, I had enough Cinders to open yet another chest.

It's completely addictive, and best of all, you get rewards for spending time grinding in Helltides, as the season theme is about helping out the Iron Wolves faction to kill the demons there.

The rewards are very generous, giving you uniques, and even a Resplendent Spark that you need to collect to craft an Uber Unique of your choice, which are one of the rarest item drops in the game.

Levelling is also much easier, I was able to hit 100 in just three days of playtime. But hitting 100 isn't the end of the game, as Blizzard has also added a bunch of endgame activities that will keep you engaged for a while, such as harder versions of the current bosses that are level 200 and fun to beat once you have your character with an endgame build..

The Pit is a new dungeon that's similar to Greater Rifts of Diablo 3, and I like the callback to it.

Completing each round of the Pit gives you materials to further upgrade your gear to make you stronger. However, drops are limited, and you will need to grind quite a bit to do so. These drops are used to Masterwork your gear, which is something you'll want to do to become even more powerful. More on this in a bit.

Loot changes

Now, the biggest thing is the loot. Loot Reborn, as the season name suggests, it's all about the change to the loot system. The developers have slimmed down the number of affixes in the gear, making it simpler and easier to understand.

Finding the right gear is a lot easier, but there's still plenty of RNG to make it hard to find. Rare items come with two affixes, while Legendary items give three. Blizzard has also added a Tempering system to add affixes to your items, but you pick from a list of three to four choices.

However, each item has a five Temper re-roll limit, which means even if you get the perfect item but get bad Temper rolls, then you have to look for another item with the stats you need to Temper again.

So don't wait for the perfect item, because you may get a bad Temper roll. Here's a tip: Temper first before you do your enchanting.

Another thing to note is that sometimes items in World Tier 4 will drop with Greater Affixes, which makes items even more powerful. However, these are random, and may not give you the right affix though.

When you get the right affix though, you will want to redo your items since it will be much more powerful. There are also items with multiple Great Affixes, too.

Once you're done Tempering, you'll need to Masterwork them to improve the affixes of the weapon, and maxing it out will make them really powerful.

To do so, you'll need to head into the Pit to farm materials, which I mentioned earlier. You'll also need a lot of gold, which you can earn by selling gear, completing Whispers.

Gold is really a huge sink now, and does make the game a little unfun because you have to stop fighting to farm it. Another thing that will take you time to get is Gems, as you'll need a lot of materials to craft the highest version.

Of course, you don't have to do all this. The game is quite playable for casual players. You'll be able to reach 100 and clear all the achievements without having the best end game loot. But for the min maxers players, there's a lot of depth for them to grind for and have fun doing so.

Quality of Life changes

Besides loot and endgame changes, Blizzard has also made things a lot easier. Your horses can now sprint in town, aspects have been changed so that once you unlock them, you can use them forever without needing to salvage it from another item. And the best part is, if you're lucky enough to find the perfect aspect, it's available to all your items.

One great thing about this change is you no longer have to manage your inventory and your stash like crazy. In fact, my stash is pretty empty to the point where I really only need two tabs, as opposed to the crazy amount I had in the previous seasons.

This also makes it easy to roll an alt, since universal aspects are available right away, and can let you easily create a powerful character to level faster and farm the other aspects that you need.

All the major towns have also been revamped, with vendors packed closely together. You don't have to run all over now to enchant, salvage, sell, or gamble for items using your murmuring obols.

It's a change I really like, since there's no need to keep going to the best town of Cerrigar, which previously had vendors the closest to each other. Now, everything's packed tightly, including stashes, so you can access everything easily.

Diablo 4 hasn't been as fun as this in a long while, and this season has been awesome to play. If the game had launched with all of these features, it would have been a fantastic game right from the get-go.

That said, Diablo 4 can only get even better from here on, and Loot Reborn is a fantastic reboot for the live service game that sorely needed it.

So be sure to boot up Diablo 4 and give this season a spin. You won't regret it – I daresay you'll love it as much as I do.

Aloysius Low is an ex-CNET editor with more than 15 years of experience. He's really into cats and is currently reviewing products at canbuyornot.com