Microsoft and Blizzard have slapped a release date on Diablo 4‘s forthcoming content-o-season Vessel Of Hatred. It’s out 8th October 2024, and sees you hooting and hollering down the road to the new region of Nahantu in search of Neyrelle, a character “who is both suffering the fate of her choice to imprison the Prime Evil Mephisto, and seeking a means to destroy him”. In the process, you may choose to become “the apex predator of the jungle as the all-new Spiritborn class”. You can also recruit mercenaries to help you, fight alongside other players in a new PvE co-op activity, “and more”.
Microsoft published a cinematic trailer for Vessel Of Hatred during their latest Xbox Game Showcase stream. The trailer is full of horrible squelching noises and screaming. I had it playing in another tab while I was writing up a trailer for the relatively wholesome and unhellish Fable, and the clashing combination of stimuli has done a number on my brain. I refuse to actually watch the trailer. You can though. Here’s the embed. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it sounds. They have kids watching these showcases, don’t they? I’m sure all the squelching and screaming is just… jungle calls, or something. Possibly a species of forest mushroom that resonates in a bizarre way under certain conditions.
You can learn more of Hatred’s Vessel on the Steam page. Hang on, they’ve got pictures of widdle baby cats on there! Not remotely squelchy or screamy or hateful or even apex-predatory! I can get behind that. These are seemingly the new pets that Blizzard have just now added to the game – you’ll find them when you next log in.
Long-in-the-tooth Diablo players like Graham will, of course, recognise Vessel Of Hatred as a throwback to the story of Diablo 2. Over on ye olde Xbox newswire, there’s a full breakdown of the trailer which includes some thoughts on who Neyrelle is and her relationship with Mephisto.
The flurry of summer games events are now underway! Hit up our Summer Game Fest 2024 hub and our Day Of The Devs roundup for all the news worth caring about from the shows so far.
