Diablo 4 hits new Steam player count high while Vessel of Hatred reviews suffer

Diablo 4 is one of those games that never seems to get an easy ride. Every single step forward Blizzard’s title takes comes with something going wrong or a negative reaction. New DLC Vessel of Hatred is no exception, as its release has seen Diablo 4 hit a new high on Steam for concurrent players, but the expansion’s reviews are scathing.

Let’s start with the good news. Following the launch of the Vessel of Hatred expansion for Diablo 4, its numbers have shot up on Steam. While this only represents a potentially small amount of the total player base, with most playing on Blizzard’s own launcher, Game Pass, or console, it does give an indication of how well the action RPG is doing. A few hours after the DLC’s slightly delayed launch, the number of players online at the same time in the game reached a record 46,014.

Unfortunately that’s where the positive news runs out, as while player numbers are high on Steam, the expansion’s reviews are not. At the time of writing Vessel of Hatred is on a ‘mostly negative’ rating with only 33% of its 212 Steam reviews coming in positive. There are several reasons for this, with the first being that delay mentioned above – it only lasted a few hours, but was enough to garner it an initial tide of negativity.

Apart from the delay, poor reviews do continue to drop in, referencing ongoing connectivity issues, problems activating expansion content, and the perception that this expansion doesn’t add anything truly new to the Diablo 4 mix. “Instead of addressing the massive issues of D4, which had been under constant open heart surgery during the first five seasons, it just brings more of the same old mediocrity, just a big disappointment,” reads one popular review. “What’s the point of always online when the “DLC” behaves like it would for an offline game that never phones home?” reads another.

Of course not all comments are negative, and our own Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred review extols the virtues of this new expansion, but it does mark a rather sour note for the release. That said, as server issues clear up we may see a Diablo 3-esque turnaround in the coming days.

Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred is out now. If you’d like to learn more and check it out for yourself, you can head over to Steam to see more.

Should you need a helping hand in your journey, our guides to the best Diablo 4 builds and the best Diablo 4 classes will empower you with all the dark knowledge you need to take your fight to hell and back.

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