Vessel of Hatred solves half of the “Dungeon Crawler” equation.

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Important takeaways

  • Diablo 4 struggles with dungeon-crawling elements despite improvements in other areas.
  • Vessel of Hatred improves exploration and boss battles, highlighting the need for more work on dungeons.
  • While Vessel of Hatred brings back the focus on dungeon exploration, Diablo 4's dungeons lack unique boss battles and interconnects.



Diablo as a series always stayed within the confines of the dungeon crawler genre, offering players several variations on the concept of dungeons as well as loot and action combat, and Diablo 4 meant to follow when it came out. With a huge focus on its open world, the dungeon crawling elements come in Diablo 4 fell a bit flat, especially with its mostly objective-based dungeons split into different sections, each with a main mechanic to deal with before heading to the boss room. This slows the process down to a trickle, forcing players to backtrack and explore every dead end, looking for the mechanics that solve things. Vessel of Hatred fixes this, but it still doesn't solve the “dungeon crawler equation”.


One could argue that Diablo 4 is two steps forward and one step back in more ways than one, as it improves many aspects of the series or even adds new interesting ones, but leaves other core elements behind in the process. The dungeon experience in Diablo 4 falls into the latter category, as what seem crucial parts of the game, like Nightmare Dungeons, tend to be disappointing in the long run. In this particular case, the problem was always the lack of a real dungeon crawling experience, and while Vessel of Hatred helps, there's more heavy lifting to be done.

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Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred Proves It's Time for Blizzard to 'Steal' Path of Exile's Best Building Feature

Diablo 4's Vessel of Hatred launched with a new class, and while the game's build variety is better than before, Path of Exile's system could help.

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred's Nahantu Dungeons Are The DLC's Unsung Hero

Diablo 4's Dungeon-Crawling returns to classic design at the cost of uniqueness

Diablo 4's Nahantu dungeons are the unsung hero of the expansion in that they lead the series back to its dungeon crawling days with an experience more meant to focus on exploring dungeons and killing bosses. This is a good change, as the game basically removes the requirements to complete side stunts before even accessing the boss room. What this does is kill two birds with one stone:


  • Exploration can be rewarded with the same side stunts that were once mandatory, but this time giving additional loot if completed and incurring no penalty if skipped
  • The action part of the ARPG doesn't stop every now and then to take care of switches, keys or similar items, but instead players can simply go ahead and kill the boss when they're ready

As such, Diablo 4's Vessel of Hatred expansion puts the focus back on this important aspect of the series, arguably even more so with Nahantu himself. In fact, Nahantu has lots of narrow paths and small mazes that are true to the idea of ​​sticking to the side walls of a dungeon to get to its ends. The problem is that this is not the whole package.


Diablo 4's Dungeons still lack the spark

Diablo 4The endgame content has changed with Vessel of Hatred, and while it's good to take the focus away from Nightmare Dungeons, it's another step back from the series' dungeon crawling roots. Not only that, but the fact that Nahantu's dungeons are more “classic” in their design and philosophy makes them stand out much less among each other – especially without unique and mechanically interesting boss fights. This remains a huge pain point for the game for now, and hopefully next Diablo 4 expansion will address that.

Even then, Diablo 4s progression system lacks an element of interconnecting dungeons outside of Sigil at the end of Nightmare Dungeons, which simply serves as a way to direct players to their next activity. What follows is that the dungeon crawling experience feels barebones for the most part, even as the game moves away from its side hustles. Dungeons in Diablo 4 just don't make much sense in the grand scheme of things, and while one could argue that the Dark Citadel Diablo 4 is online dungeon crawling at its best, it's not an activity most of the player base will experience. It's a start, but an actual return to form may take longer than a DLC.


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