I know it sounds ridiculous given the entire point of the series, but dungeons were the last thing I wanted to do in Diablo 4 for the past several seasons. They're fussy, boringly easy, and strictly worse to run than any of the other dungeon-like activities Blizzard has added to the game.
Most of the time, Diablo 4 players aren't even talking about those labyrinthian caves stuffed with monsters when they say "dungeon". Regular ass dungeons, despite being a series staple, were one of the last remnants of the entirely different game Diablo 4 was when it was released.
In Season 9, Sins of the Horadrim, dungeons are back. I've been spamming them since it went live and the fatigue that usually drives me to start mixing it up hasn't even begun to set in.
Part of that is because Diablo 4 is currently in a great place when it comes to the speed at which you level up and acquire loot. It's much more of a climb than it used to be and that means you occasionally run into monsters who actually bite back. Blizzard added a bunch of new dungeon modifiers, or affixes, to the list, which can surprise you with things like a boss ambush or getting chained in place while being torn apart.
I should clarify that I'm talking about Nightmare Dungeons, the hard mode version of normal dungeons. Nightmare Dungeons have affixes that make enemies harder and affixes that reward you with more of something specific, like gold or crafting materials. In season 9, Nightmare Dungeons can also include Horadric Strongrooms, which are lucrative timed events you can complete that will also increase the rewards for the rest of the dungeon.
Horadric Strongrooms and the new monsters affixes make dungeons mysterious and a little intimidating again. My favorite part of playing a Diablo game is exploring a dungeon and stumbling into scenarios where the random elements combine in such a way to actually challenge me. I was busy zapping everything in my path when the bug boss who you used to only find in the open world showed up to pester me. I had to fight him in a narrow hallway with monsters that explode on death all around me. Dying in Diablo 4? It's a possibility again, and I'm thrilled there are more opportunities for threatening encounters when you least expect them.
The climb is back
The new dungeons also solve a problem that's been developing over the last few seasons as Diablo 4 has sanded off more rough edges than I would've liked. Playing it started to feel too weightless and too streamlined. You create a character, blast to level 60, then cycle through endgame stuff until the only thing left is to gamble for extremely rare drops.
With the new dungeon system, there's a whole side of the game that is made to rough you up a little with the chance at heaps of valuable loot. Not every dungeon is a neat straight line to the end, and the Horadric portals incentivize you to hunt them down before clearing the whole thing out. Restoring the friction to the dungeon experience—while maintaining a commensurate amount of rewards—gives Diablo 4 the life and spontaneity that it lost when everything felt like a ladder toward a set goal.
On top of that, the new Nightmare Escalations keep dungeons relevant when you've got a strong enough build to fly through regular Nightmare Dungeons. These rare items launch a set of three Nightmare Dungeons with increasing difficulty and rewards that end in a pretty tough boss fight. They heighten the tension of a normal Nightmare Dungeon by forcing you to commit to finishing three of them in a row no matter what happens. I ran one and thought I had it under control until I hit the last boss and realized my damage output couldn't cut it.
And if there's anything that really drives me to play action RPGs like Diablo, it's the payoff of refining your gear and build to eventually overcome those kinds of obstacles. I teleported out of the dungeon forgoing my boss loot with a list of things to chase down before I try it again. For as much as I've generally enjoyed Diablo 4 over the last couple of years, it desperately needed more ways to push back on you and, in turn, make upgrading your gear more meaningful.
Even if I eventually hit a point where dungeons are boringly easy, it will be well after having to put in the effort to get them to that point. In past seasons, Nightmare Dungeons were forgettable far too early in your journey, which forced you to abandon a huge chunk of the game. What was left was a bunch of activities that were designed to be mostly predictable. Not anymore. Dungeons are hard and a little mysterious again, and season 9 has me hopeful Blizzard wants to put a little bit of menace back into Diablo.
