Farewell, Diablo III story mode. You had a nice long run, but now that I’ve completed Reaper of Souls‘ fifth chapter, there’s no reason for me to replay you ever again. It’s adventure time!
At first glance the Reaper of Souls expansion for Diablo III felt really light on content. The largely uninspired Act V of the story only took me three hours to complete, and while the defensive Crusader class is lovely and all, I dreaded the thought of trudging through all five chapters all over again several times to unlock its true potential.
But a glorious thing happened when I completed Act V with my Demon Hunter. Adventure Mode unlocked for all of my characters, forever changing the way I play Diablo III.
In the words of the former archangel Tyrael:
“Greetings, nephalem. Though you have defeated many powerful foes, there remains much to be done. This is a map of Sanctuary and the realms beyond. From here, you can select a region to view it in greater details. This map displays the different places you can go within the region. Locations marked by an exclamation point have bounties for you to undertake. Bounties are the many tasks and challenges which require your attention. In return for completing them, you will be rewarded with powerful items. Good luck, nephalem. Sanctuary has need of you.”
Adventure Mode opens up all of Sanctuary to any of a players’ characters, regardless of level. Each of the game’s five chapter maps are populated with five random bounties, tasks such as “Defeat this boss” or “Clear out this dungeon level”. It’s a total loot scoot, complete with randomly-generated special events.
Simply port to the area your bounty is in, fight your way to the goal, and then immediately teleport to the next bounty. Completing all five rewards the player with experience points and gear.
Players will also obtain Rift Keystones as they play through Adventure Mode, which can be used at a Nephalem Obelisk to open Nephalem Rifts. These are massive random battlegrounds populated by hordes of creatures, the killing of which slowly fills a meter. Once the meter reaches capacity, a powerful Rift Gaurdian spawns near the player, promising a tough battle for some lovely loot.
If you skip to the last 30 minutes or so of this past weekend’s Saturday Stream video, you can watch me defeat a Rift Guardian by the skin of my teeth.
So we’ve got bite-sized quests, open access to the entire game world, challenging random boss battles and an entirely new and exciting way to level up characters. It’s all I ever wanted.
The expansion might be called Reaper of Souls, but the eponymous Malthael is but a brief and forgettable dalliance. He’s a stepping stone to the real meat of the first Diablo III expansion pack.
So until Blizzard releases another expansion pack with an additional chapter of story to flit through, Adventure Mode is what’s happening.
Comments
9 responses to “Adventure Mode Is My New Favourite Way To Play Diablo III”
Those sweet sweeeeeeeeeeeet legendaries fill the gaping hole in my otherwise empty soul.
D3 is back kids. It’s fun again.
seconded. most fun I’ve had playing D3 since the euphoria of release (which wore off pretty quickly, but yeah)
Yeah agree. Diablo 3 is awesome fun now. Loot 2.0 has fixed a lot that was wrong. The new adventure mode is great too.
That feeling when you find a Legendary… and now knowing it’s going to be pretty sweet and not a door stop… 🙂
Not to mention, the loot that drops will actually suit your character. There is nothing more annoying than picking up a wizard’s hat just to see STR and DEX on it. I am really enjoying the adventure mode, and you even get to see the occasional legendary or even set item. Well done Blizzard, this is the game we’ve all been looking for.
Still pissed of that these modes werent in the original release
So does the adventure mode scale for your level? Or is it end-game characters only?
(Can’t check for myself since I only have an ultrabook now so am waiting for the PS4 version to replay D3…)
Scales for character. However you need to have beat Act5 first. It’s a fantastic way to level up new heroes.
You can roll a new character and defeat Diablo at level 1.
The fun will never end.
so now im conflicted
D3 v POE
not enough hours in the day