Hamish Lindsay

Lots to sync your teeth into. Like restoring the Mona Lisa or the roof of the Sistine Chapel, remaking a game that’s a fan favourite and broadly considered to be one of the franchise highlights isn’t a project to undertake lightly. So, when Ubisoft finally announced that Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag was getting a long expected and even longer awaited remake this year, I was eager to find out just how a developer would go about tackling such a titanic task.

Absterg-who? Creaking masts, churning waves and salty sea spray. A ragged crew, belting out their shanties. The grimy streets of old Havana. There was a certain vibe to Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag that’s as hard to fully describe as it has been for other games to recreate. Many have tried, some to moderate success, others… well, the less said about them the better.

ESC to skip. Diablo 4’s Lord of Hatred arrives at a weird time. If you were to login today and compare it to the base game at launch, you’d be completely lost as nearly every major system has undergone some degree of overhaul in the intervening years. Gear customization, the levelling experience, end game activities – it’s almost all different, updated through changes that come down season after season. So what, then, does the latest yearly expansion for Diablo 4 offer?