The Dark Secrets Unveiled! Diablo 4’s Malignant Hearts: A Troubling Revelation

Highlights

The Malignant Hearts present unique abilities and the opportunity for formidable builds. Nevertheless, the process of acquiring them becomes burdensome, similar to the gems found in the original game.

The introduction of a dedicated pouch would greatly improve the quality of life for players in Diablo 4. While the first season brings numerous new features, the implementation of the Malignant Hearts falls short. The Season of the Malignant revolves around a destructive force corrupting Sanctuary, resulting in new obstacles, adversaries, and a unique item called Malignant Hearts. These Hearts play a significant role in the game's endgame progression, but gathering them becomes burdensome.

Diablo 4's Malignant Hearts Are Gems With a New Name

Malignant Hearts will replace Diablo 4's gems for the entirety of season one. These unique powers introduced alongside the replacement gems promise to enhance the player experience by providing exciting boosts to exterminate demons. Unfortunately, despite this season being an opportunity for Blizzard to correct one of its biggest mistakes with Diablo 4's gems, it appears that the studio has simply repeated the same error with a fresh facade. Instead of fulfilling the long-awaited gem pouch request, the developers have opted to maintain the status quo.

In Diablo 4's campaign, players invest significant time collecting gems that can be inserted into different equipment pieces, resembling the mechanics of previous Diablo gems. These gems grant players diverse stat enhancements, contributing to their overall performance. As players traverse Sanctuary, they can expect to accumulate numerous gems from treasure chests and defeated foes. While this feature offers players flexibility in customizing their stat bonuses, it also runs the risk of becoming excessively burdensome.

Since its release, Diablo 4 players have been eagerly requesting a more convenient method for storing gems. Currently, these gems occupy valuable inventory slots that could be utilized for armor and weapons. As they can be found in abundance throughout the game, players are constantly forced to rearrange their inventory to accommodate them. This can become quite bothersome as the game progresses, leading players to express their desire for a separate gem tab within their inventory. Despite equipment, consumables, quest items, and aspects each having their own dedicated tabs, players have yet to receive a designated gem pouch.

In Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant, gems are replaced by the all-new Malignant Heart feature. Functioning similarly to gems, these items offer unique powers and attributes. Malignant Hearts come in various types that can only be placed in corresponding sockets, allowing players to create even more formidable builds. Acquiring these hearts may prove slightly more challenging, but most players will likely amass a substantial collection during their journeys over the next few months.

A dedicated pouch for these items would have been ideal, but unfortunately, it is not currently available in the game. The Malignant Hearts still take up valuable inventory space, causing players to constantly reorganize in order to accommodate them. Despite the potential for improvement, this system feels very similar to the previous gems, just with a different appearance.

With the start of a new season in Diablo 4, one would expect significant changes. However, many argue that Blizzard did not meet those expectations. While the addition of Malignant Hearts brings some interesting corruption effects, the changes overall are lacking and lack important quality of life features. Players are essentially interacting with a new socketable item in the same way they did with the old one. Although not inherently negative, a small quality of life improvement would have made a significant difference.

Diablo 4 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.