Diablo IV came out with a bang last year, offering an incredibly polished experience with the addicting loop of looting and upgrading the series is known for. With a few Seasons under its belt and a slew of updates over the past year and a half, it has now delivered its first true expansion, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, furthering the story and offering fans a proper opportunity to jump back in and experience some epic new content. With a truly disgusting trailer that initially revealed Vessel of Hatred, the expansion is as dark, dastardly and horrifying as Diablo has ever been, even though the included campaign could have been fleshed out a little bit more.

After having dealt with iconic demon-mummy Lilith at the end of Diablo IV, Vessel of Hatred picks up straight afterwards, focusing on Mephisto (Lilith’s father) and his designs for Sanctuary. Neyrelle is having a fairly terrible time, having vivid hallucinations of Mephisto ripping her apart as he spreads hate across the lands. Following Neyrelle’s trail into Nahantu’s jungle, you’ll be joined by new companions, some more mystical and godly than ever.

The story will take around 5-6 hours to complete, and firmly places your character front and centre; I can’t recall your created protagonist being such a focus of cut-scenes previously in Diablo IV, and that makes you feel more grounded in this particular adventure, as you make strange new allies and attempt to stop Mephisto by any means necessary. It does falter slightly, ending a bit too quickly and leaving some questions unanswered. Vessel of Hatred feels like the setup for a meatier story expansion in the future, and that might disappoint fans on a narrative level.

The biggest new addition in Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is the new character class: The Spiritborn. While they’re currently a little overturned, they make for some of the most fun I’ve had with a Diablo class in a long time. A magical warrior, they connect with guardian spirits that can be summoned to aid you in battles, each with their own strengths and thrilling abilities. I buddied up with the centipede, a poison-driven build that made sure enemies were always losing health while making sure my own was topped up. The ultimate ability involves the giant centipede spirit sprouting out from the dirt, spitting venom at enemies like a sort of disgusting bug turret, which is always satisfying to pull out when being overwhelmed by demons.

What’s most enticing about the Spiritborn is that the class can be easily respected, taking different paths down the same skill tree but creating what feels like an entirely new character style altogether. This opportunity to change and adapt your class without being locked into a specific role like in the other classes means a lot more experimentation; do you use the gorilla spirit to be more tanky, or use the eagle that focuses on speed and teleporting you around the map? Perhaps the jaguar, which is super speedy but also very much a glass cannon. Our squad of four all played Spiritborn together, but each chose a different guardian spirit, and it felt like we were a well-oiled machine capitalising on different skills. It’s a smart way of adding a new class but not making them so niche that it will impact group play, given everybody will likely want to try Spiritborn first up.

Key systems of Diablo IV have been tweaked in Vessel of Hatred, too; rune words return, allowing you to put special enhancements on your equipment, something that the most die-hard fans will be stoked to tinker with. The levelling system also now caps at 60 instead of 100 but then has 300 levels of overlevelling to really work through your Paragon perk tree in a lot of detail. It means you’ll be hitting that endgame grind a bit faster, which should streamline new characters overall, as you tweak your build and find the best loot to absolutely maximise your abilities.

There’s even a new system for the more solo-minded players out there; there are several NPC mercenaries you can recruit to fight alongside you, making the single-player grind a lot more palatable. They each have their own quests for you to get to know them, and you’ll unlock new abilities and rewards while they’re tagging along, which is a good incentive to keep you occupied even if you don’t have mates to quest with you at any given time.

The new endgame content feels fast and furious as well. The Kurast Undercity is a time-attack dungeon that is a good way to quickly farm endgame loot, but the main course is the Dark Citadel, designed for four players with tough bosses, high-level enemies and some cooperative puzzles that will test even the most focused groups. The Dark Citadel is a new take on Diablo, but I can see it being a mainstay considering how the community has gotten behind it, especially with Party Finder there to help you easily connect with other players, another quality-of-life addition to Diablo IV that just makes a lot of sense. While not as challenging in terms of cooperation and communication as raids seen in other mainline MMORPGs, it still presents an enticing activity to dive deep into.

There’s a bit of a grind to get there though, as Vessel of Hatred spends a little too much time forcing you through previous endgame activities to earn your way into the Dark Citadel, on higher World Tier difficulty levels. I understand that they want to make sure you’re definitely ready for the challenging new pursuit, but I was eager to get stuck into it having heard positive things, only to feel like I had to smash through more and more dungeons and rounds of the Kurast Undercity to upgrade my gear and spend more Paragon points before being let in. Still, for dedicated players, it’s worth grinding for.