Diablo 4: Is It Worth Your Money? In-Depth Review by Rhykker (No Spoilers)

NOTE: Diablo 3 technically does have an overlay map, but not really. When we talk about an overlay map, we mean a map that that can overlay on top of your active gameplay while continuing to play. In D3, when you bring up the map, yes it is transparent atop your game, but you cannot play with the map up like in D2 or other aRPGs.

can you imagine reporting on a game EVERYDAY FOR A DECADE then it finally coming out? I'm happy for Rhykker

I'm so happy for you man. Your videos are the ones I always go to first for tier lists, build guides, game reviews/updates, etc... So happy you can finally churn out a ton of good stuff now that the game is available! Looking forward to your future content.

I played two of the beta events and I really loved what I saw so far. The combat system and the skill tree felt like there were more ways to play the character than I could get to and that was awesome. I loved the dark and gritty story a lot too. The 'open world' part was jarring as heck though and that's going to be a leveling issue for me.
They took great care crafting a wonderful story. It built a fantastic 'you and a couple NPCs against the great evil' vibe (at least the part they let me play) and then as you run to your next objective. . . there's 8 people fighting stuff in some random event. It totally killed immersion for me every time.
I'm banking on pushing myself through all that annoying stuff until endgame. I've played a lot of MMOs over the years and once the leveling story is over, I suspect the open world will be welcome then. I just wish they'd given me some sort of option to turn it off when I'm playing the story-line because it really does harsh the experience. So I'll just tolerate the damage they do to the story experience and hope it works as well as I hope come endgame.

What a fantastic review! I played the open beta, but then zoned out on purpose to not spoil myself too much. This video was great for decisionmaking without spoiling anything. Very well done!

I think the reason you have to open the map more is because its an open world, where d3 had lots of linear submaps that can read themselves

What a brilliant and honest review from a Diablo veteran. Thanks!

Rhykker, it's time you start covering Diablo 5 leaks and make your predictions on a release date based on previous Blizzard releases.

I totally agree with the progression feels. Sure the destination is somewhat all that matters in the long run but the journey for me is more important. if i dont feel like im getting stronger during the journey then it makes me question my destination build and also makes me consider other endgame builds or make me question my my first character choice and maybe will make me play a different character... oh its gonna be a long journey.

My character is about lvl 26 and so far I've been having a blast. I love that the bosses feel challenging and the classes all seem so cool and I feel like there are so many different kinds of builds you can do

I love the evade feature but it feels pointless at times when some mobs that aren’t even huge in size have a 30meter melee swing. In cases where I’d have though I easily dodged an attack being out of reach it still ended up hitting me, and that is extremely frustrating when it feels like a waste to use evade compared to other mobility options that will actually get me out of the enemy melee range. Either their melee range needs toned down or there needs to be a .5 or .25 sec period to guarantee a dodge when using evade and timing it correctly. That’s my hope for that new feature.

You've got my subscription! Loved your in-depth review! You give a good sense of what the game will actually be. I hope you do other games as well.

Just wanted to say how much I appreciated this review. Excellent talking points, mechanics descriptions were exceedingly well done and you were objective where needed but honest about your own point of view which gave perspective. This video is pure gold.

Rhykker I just want to let you know that I appreciate how you refrained from spoiling things for those of us who want to experience the game blind I feel that after seeing this video I have no gameplan but to play and enjoy the game, Thank you for being such a great Diablo content creator.

This was the review i was looking forward to. You made D3 more enjoyable with your content, so I'm happy to hear your thoughts to the game. i will be picking D4 up, I know this is a starting point and am looking forward to being part of the game as it evolves.

I wanna add that I think for most people the map will be fine. Most people are accustomed to that kind of compass map in the corner, and honestly I'm personally a lot more comfortable reading that than an overlay map. Which is weird. I remember playing D2 as a kid and using the overlay, but now I prefer the mini map.

Fantasticly comprehensive review! I've pre-ordered the game and eagerly await my time with it. I just hope I don't have a miserable time leveling a Necromancer. I didn't play them when they were strong as hell before, only got to try one in the Server Slam when they got hammered. And it felt kind of lacking, even if the skills and flavor were awesome. Most especially against Ashava though, I felt damn near worthless, even when switching over to a Bone build. But all the same, they've been my favorite class since D2, so I will play one.

My biggest concern is how they will handle upcoming season passes. They originally said there wouldn't be power scaling in Immoral's season pass and we know how that went

Great review! Much appriciated that there were no spoilers at all for those of us who want to enjoy the story. I only hope that they wont sneak in something akin to pay to win into the battle pass post launch. I feel like Diablo Immortal has been a bad influencer. I have been following this channel for many years now and hope that the release of D4 will bring even more people here. Keep up the good work Rhykker and enjoy D4!

I was a little hesitant to watch this cuz I want to go in "fresh" but this was absolutely perfect. Just enough information without spoiling any thing, story or gameplay wise. I've been binging your Diablo lore series in anticipation for D4. You're truly an S tier Diablo content creator.

Regarding always opening the map, I think it's because levels are now prebuilt and most are rather labyrinthine. The solution I found was to set a map marker and follow the path to reach your objective

Fantastic review. Very detailed. Well done, Rhykker!

What a great review! Clearly outlined key aspects of the game. I prob wont get at this point due to $$. But instead i will later in the year thanks to this review. Keep up the great content.

Thank you very much for your honest review, I as well started out as a young teenager playing D1 and D2, then D3. I've spent countless hours on them all and have been watching with baited breath on D4. Appreciate the overview of the game without spoiling it.

Thanks for another informative video about D4 ! I enjoyed playing in the early Beta, Beta and Server-Slam-weekends to get a glimpse of the upcoming gameplay and I really liked what they did in terms of talents etc.
Looking now at your Cons-table about the "forced Multiplayer" is really concerning me - I was hoping that MP was only during the Beta-testing and that in the final game, one would be able to at least start a "private session" as it was the case with D3, which already forced to be permanent online.
My experience during the Beta was that my game got slowed down very much especially as soon as I was in a town (after using a townportal), as many people were in the same region at the same time, which in the ServerSlam even froze the game several times, although I did not experience this in the (early-)Beta-weekends !
Furthermore, the fact that many players are also out there in the open world and doing events, was partially frustrating, as I often got the "near an event"-alarm, rushed there and had to watch as the event had just been cleared by other players, leaving me with disappointment :( I had to experience these situations already in World of Warcraft a lot, though this game is an MMO!, so it is okay there to experience this... but Diablo was always an actionRPG where I could play solo in MY PACE, killing mobs and doing events etc whenever I wanted to and not being rushed by other players !! In the Beta, several regions in D4 were simply overrun by players, leaving almost no mobs alive for Quests, which is/was another factor that I was really not enjoying in the Beta !!
So in short: I really hope that there may still be a singleplayer-mode available, leaving only certain regions for MMO/raid-battles like the Worldbosses, but the rest of the regions being untouched by other players as in previous Diablo-games ! because if I would WANT to play with other players, I would have chosen the Multiplayer-mode already in previous titles of this game series...

Bravo Rhykker! Great content, awesome sequencing and pace, super polished delivery. "Professional" can sometimes be taken as damming with faint praise, but in this case it is meant as a high, high compliment. Many thanks for all your invaluable Diablo coverage over the years, bring on 1-June!

I felt the skill progression, instead of gaining higher skill levels, was focused in skill alteration from legendarys. On druid I've been using pulverize since early game but then found 2 legendarys along the way to 50 that drastically improved the effect and strength of the skill.

I think map opening is simply something that comes with the territory in large open worlds. I like that. I don't like feeling guided. In reality you would need a map, or get lost.

Pre-downloading it now :) Thanks Rhykker for a great summary of what we can expect from D4. One of my first PC games was D1 and I absolutely loved it, D2 took it to the next level in many ways. D3 was a huge bummer apart from the combat. I've been following the development of D4 for many years and I'm so happy to see high scores all around. Ultimate edition, collector's edition shipping soon, it's gonna be a great time! This is gonna be the only thing I game for a long time :D
Will be even better when Paladin/Dark Knight arrives with first expansion.

I really liked Diablo 3 (after all the fixes) and I consider myself a casual, even logging in tons of hours in Diablo 2 and 3 however I do really like the new direction (or back to old core elements) since diablo 3 does become really really easy even before finishing the campaign. Thus you have convinced me to play Diablo 4 and further more, your amazing voice, calm demeanor and huge knowledge has earned you a subscriber

A very high quality review. I watched a lot of Diablo 4 reviews in the past day but nothing gets even close to this :)

The skill progression aspect hit me the other day; you essentially have your 'build' completed by like level 25 to 30, and all the rest is just buffing the numbers. That's a fairly short window of ability progression. One thing Rhykker didn't go in to here though, is that the more points you spend on a skill, the skill's visual graphic itself subtly increases in effect point per point.

Hello Rhykker,
Thank you for the review. For me the itemization and progression issues are probably a deal breaker (Also the fact that I decided to stop giving money to Blizzard after WC3 Reforged came out).
Although I am a well informed ARPG player, I am not a massive consumer of it. However, I constantly jump back to your channel, specially because of your honesty on your reviews, your background, the professionalism and passion you put in your videos. I wish I could see you review other type of games!
Cheers and have fun playing

Awesome job with the review....I have played it for about a day and just like you, I have been playing Diablo since the start! I absolutely love it! I think Blizzard done a good job in taking their time and making sure they got it right!

love your review! expecting more great d4 content

Played D3 since launch, and D4 blew my mind. The world feels alive and terrifying sometimes.
Codex of power dungeons are my favorite new mechanic a giant loot dungeon with a guaranteed buff at the end is a pretty awesome experience even when it wasn't for my current character.

As someone who has loved Diablo since my 8th grade year. This game looks magnificent. I hear you about druid, but I still wanna try it!🎉 Thanks for this ! Mad respect to you, bro hope to see you in game bro!

That was just a really well done review. Excellent job Rhykker.

I spent a lot of time in D2 and still play it at times to this day as i bought the remastered version, i played D3 when it came out but was hugely disappointed that the treasure hunting aspect in D2 was lacking in D3. I mean the gear in D2 was so different and versatile, the rare things were fun to look for and even after playing for years there is still that thing you are looking for which will get you to turn the game on and play again. With D3 it seemed that each class had an uber set of armour which made them powerful and then that was it, i did log on to do the monthly stuff for about 5 months and get the rewards, but then that got tedious as well. My great hope, is that they have brought back the fun treasure hunting aspect in D4 so that there is always a reason to keep going back.

I do genuinely enjoy the game play and all the dungeons/side objectives you can do in the game a big gripe I have about the game is balancing issues and how heavily reliant certain builds can be on specific uniques and legendaries bit gameplay wise as well as combat has kept me on the game for hours upon hours but hopefully blizzard listens to the community to fix certain issues with the game but overall an enjoyable experience

Such a great review, love your content!

well put review, thanks for putting your time into reviewing different aspects of the game

Hay Rhykker, I just notice while preordering the Ultimate Edition you actually get more than the Wings of the Creator Emote but also 1 extra mount called Light-Bearer and Caparidon of Faith Mount Armor in adddition to the Temptation Mount and the Hellborn Carapace Armor. I dont know if this is new but the Ultimate Edition has a little bit more to offer with this. :)

i have to say of all the DIABLO content creators, i respect Rhykker the most. he has put the most time and love in to the franchise, from way back.salute.

Rhykker, awesome review! As much as I'd love to give it a try, Blizzard has adjusted the price for some regions and their games cost more than what it's affordable. I'm not sure about the price of D4 before, but Hearthstone prices were increased by a ~600% in some places. I'm sad to say that I rather spend my money in a better way.

A brilliant set of diablo videos really well presented and explained, excellent review to. I'm new to diablo and watched 4 of this channels D4 videos. It looked overwhelming on other channels, but I carn't wait to play it now. Thankyou and best wishes all.

Really great insight into the game. Excellent content

Been with this guy over god know how many years..great content as usual Well done Rykker!

Now that you mention it, the D4 Minimap is ALOT more zoomed in than in previous games. A more zoomed out slightly larger minimap that would give you some rough overview of the outline of the area you are in. The general need for looking at the map alot is unfortunately a symptom of game world development aswell. Certain subconsciously active elements in the world can lead you to where you need to go without having to look at the map. Best example is probably Elden Ring, which makes great use of notable vistas and light sources etc...

Thanks Rhykker. Really appreciate all the work you put into your channel and content.

I have skeleton mages casting blizzard over everything on my Necro. Tons of fun! Personally very happy with D4. The game also has built in voice chat enabled (optional) for your party or your entire clan.

I used Storm Druid and feel I got pushed into a Stone Storm Druid. It's actually my favorite. By as you said you like range , so could be the reason... Then again I never played beta and I am also On ps5. It does seem the gear drop, and abilities seem to Push you more down a route. example Sorc feels like your better off picking an element and staying that route.

Never seen your content before.
This was an excellent video.
I've loved diablo ever since i first entered tristram in 96.
I played the beta for D4. I really enjoyed it. I'm totally stoked for full release.

I appreciate that, whereas they gave you access, you're still remaining loyal to your fanbase and you're telling them your real opinion; like, it's not a bought and paid for opinion. It's the good and the bad. I've followed you for a long time, but I super respect your honesty and it's nice to see; and it's really nice to see you're still loyal to your fans, beyond anything else.

I just love the nostalgic classic, Diablo music. I love that they keep the same sound effects throughout all diablos too, at least I know the female demon screams are the same as from D2. Can't remember D1 as much as i was so young then and can't replay it like I can D2 still. But I think it is the same! Great review! I'll always buy Diablo games as a mega fan, and the last two times I bought the collectors editions, and just got my D4 collector's package in the mail! Very cool packaging and loving the red Lilith candle. They even included some Lilith blood rose petals!

Best channel. Depth and honest opinion. GREAT review, thanks.👍👍

Excellent review. Consistently great content big bro ✊🏾

You are THE diablo content creator,. Super thankful for you and love your channel. I won't be buying D4 but I hope you have nothing but fun and success.

I am planning to get it and am confident I will spend hundreds of hours in the game. I spent hundreds of hours in D2 and was stoked when D3 came out and played less than 10 hours as they killed my favorite part of the game: buildcrafting in skill trees. Now that it's back I am stoked.
I'm already nostalgic theory crafting all 5 of my previous sorceresses in the game, then my necro and Druid builds! Never been big on the barbarian, but rogues are fun too.

As a D2 player mainly this was a very balanced review and after playing for a couple days I found most of this to be my experience. Its really quite polished, it feels to me like a WoW version of PoE the way WoW was to EQ.

Dang, what a great overview! So well-spoken too, really makes it easy to follow and even the auto subs are correct. I'm even more excited to start playing (in about 58 hours from now) after this

I appreciate your honesty and authenticity. It is why your content, in my opinion, is a cut above the rest. Nice work.

Question: Do you think the lack of visual gear progression is due to the battle pass system, where gear cosmetics plays a big role? Like, it incentivizes people to spend money on the battle pass, as it is the only way to make your character look like a chad?

So 2 weeks later and Diablo 4 has settled for me. Im blown away. I had alot of meh going in from beta and now im playing an endgame starter druid build. I was real hesitant about the map. After finishing the campaign and working on all the sidestuff. Im hooked. You just want to explore the map. The side content is better than the campaign. It tells the story of the map and its people and monsters. They ooze with lore and cool diablo mini stories. You even have a quest about the translator from the trailer. Sure they can be a little "samey" but thats just the limits of the arpg genre. These quests are so well done...they just pull you in and immerse you. Every zone feels unique and different. The monsters...npcs..animals. i love just wandering the map and blowing packs up. Diablo 4 is a big big win and im ready to let go of 3. Well done Blizzard

I agree on nearly every point. It’s going to be a great game.

Amazing review. Just what i was looking for. Thank you.

I think the reason we need to open the map more now is because the game isn't linear. Being an open world, we can go from one side of the map to the other, and having to know where you're going to get there, you need the map open. I would really prefer the overlay map, especially because you can mark places on the map, so it would be so much easier to navigate that way.

I am very glad to hear it seems to be most of what we expected and more. Especially given Blizzard's recent history.
I am still going to wait until some time passes to see how it goes on, but I am definitely excited about it.
Thank you for your perseverance in bringing us your content and keeping Diablo interesting over the years, Rhykker.

This video just got me even more hype for the game! Can't wait to play D4!

I love Ryker's videos and awesome amazing job as usual and congrats I did some open beta still haven't gotten D4 yet now after watching this video I'm well informed and gonna jump in. One thing to mention is cross play option as console and computer or PC is coming together as 1 so if you have both or you play at home on co-op console or visit at a friend's house you can pick up where you left off solo from any platform which I think is cool. Ryker is the legit best stuff out there!!

Awesome review. But then I expected no less from my main man Rhykker 👍

I already bought d4, I've been waiting for this game for so long, and am thoroughly enjoying yet i still watched this video in its entirety, because honestly who could get bored of listening to rhykker talk :). I cant wait for the all the rhykker d4 videos to come!

I’m abit concerned about using the same skill as a core dmg delivery from level 1 - 100. That would get insanely mundane fast.

I will definitely be picking this game up. I would have gotten the digital deluxe for early access but I will need to wait a few paychecks to grab any version of the game. I have played every version since they released Diablo. I am looking forward to cutting my way through the hordes of hell!

You've done this so many Years Rhykker, I've been checking out every new video for every new season for D3 and it's wild to think that I can watch your videos on D4 now ;D

I'm on the fence about the pace, progression feel and trading restrictions but we'll have to see. The flaws can be worked out in time

“I can’t tell you how much you should value an imaginary pair of pants”. One of the greatest quotes from Rhykker right there.

For those who are new. Rhykker is part of content for diablo games. Like an encyclopedia. You gonna visit him a lot for builds and customization. Can't wait to start diablo after years of PoE. Good luck everybody

I'm excited about the release of Diablo 4, but I have to say that I'm excited about your videos about equally so or maybe even more so. You've been someone I have followed for many years and when Diablo hit rock bottom and you made that video about worrying about the future of your channel, I felt like it was over or at least a very likely possibility.
But now, it's starting a whole new chapter and I'm glad I'm here for it.

I would say its gotten a lot better than d3. The mechanics of interactive dashing and dodge. It feels like a better beefed up version of immortal and d3. The monsters leveling up with you gives you more balance through out so you wont get too bored. Gives you the oshit a group of bats can take you out if you don't fight back kind of feeling. I'm sure they can patch up a few bugs here and there where curtains stretching out across the screen for elites being stuck in trees, and characters being stuck on one spot when attacking a group or horde. I would say it was worth buying the basic tier for new comers and like an OG diablo 1 and 2 guy I got the ultimate because I've enjoyed the lore and game.

Rhykker, what about performance issues?
My biggest concern right now is if Blizzard fixed the issues regarding GPUs straight-up frying during certain portions of the game (such as when interacting with shop NPCs) and certain cutscenes (such as the chapel flashback).
Even in the Server Slam I still saw reports of players with perfectly fine rigs (some even brand new) that got fucked up by this problem. During the closed beta it apparently affected only users of Gigabyte 3080ti, but other models were also reported to be affected.
I'm super hyped for this game but I'm genuinely scared to risk my GPU playing it.

As someone who stumbled on your video, I want to say thank you. You clearly put a lot of care and thought into this video and haven’t forced ads on me after 20 minutes. I look forward to finishing the video

I appreciate your honest review. I've been avoiding this game ever since it was announced, since it's not a David Brevick game.
Given what you've experienced in D4 so far, would you say that it at least does justice to David's original vision?

I love the combat system in d4. I wasnt a big fan of the meat grinder style in D3 where you just tear theough everything in seconds. Im only a little ways in, but between the beta and bow the actuql launch, this has the actual Diablo feel for me that 3 felt like it lost.
Also, yeah can we please get an overlay map, i also find myself stopping constantly to check it

For your minimap issue: You can rightclick on a spot on the map, and the game tries to give you a route from your current location, so you don't always have to open up the map. Also I think it has to do with not knowing the world. Once we explored all of it, or big junks, it is getting easier. Reminds me of Ori and the Blind Forest, where at the beginning I had to open up the map as well, where later I knew where to go.
In regards to having the main skills from the beginning: I always found it weird in PoE that you often have to level with different skills than you want to play. So I actually like that you can do that very early. And if you are new and low level, you can actually try out every basic and core skill and respec freely, because it starts to cost gold only at level 15 or something.
A Clan or Guild house, or hideout, would be great, you could team up from a more immersive feature instead just via clan chat. But also some base features seem to be missing from D3, how long someone is inactive, setting up notes on members, renaming the name of the ranks as in D3. Hopefully it gets expanded later.
The Pale Guys name was seen in the subtitles during the open betas, named Elias.
One issue with the random other players you see is for World Bosses. We saw during Server Slam that only 1 or 2 "out of sync" players can ruin the fun for 10 others. Imo they need to let us make a party of 12 or a Warband like in Immortal for these events (that also has some sort of mini Warband camp btw.).

Thank you for this really great review. I can't wait to play Diablo 4 and see any videos you upload for the game.

The art style has ALWAYS made Diablo top tier even with some of the shortcomings

What a great review. I remember watching you often during early Path of Exile, 10 years ago.

3 things im waiting for: ability to remove all upper right screen ui, remove arrows above enemies when using controller, and offline...with the last one not being as important. Thought combat seemed disconnected a bit. I did appreciate the ability to make highlight outlines go away...and all of the sensitivity settings. Art is def superb and really want to be able to see a full screen of it while just knowing my objective and moving foward with only that knowledge.

As much as I was looking forward to Diablo 4, that price tag makes it not worth it anymore, seeing your in depth breakdown. I'll just wait for the sale 😊

As far as opening and closing map, just set a custom point of where you want to go while in the open world to avoid this. It will show a line of where to go on your UI map.

I think we will feel progression in the end game. You don't feel like you are progressing because the mobs level with you. Once you reach max level the rares are going to become very interesting.

Thanks for the video Rhykker. Your insight is appreciated as always. And now i know that I will not be playing this game. Too complicated and slow to power up, and I still don't understand what the "endgame" is. Which is okay, since I've only played Diablo 3 in the franchise, it's really not a big deal to me either way. But I'll stick with D3. I like being able to start a character from scratch and be able to put together a high level build in an hour or two. And also, I've always preferred the "brute force" option in gaming. Probably because I grew up playing the OG Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior games, where the answer was often simply to grind and level up some more. Anything else is more complicated than I care to take the time for. So enjoy Diablo 4 everyone.

Love the more MMO aspects in arpgs. also love them moving away from the god awful overlay map !! So good

The reason why you didn't feel the need to open the full map in D3 as opposed to D4, is that D3 had much more linear maps. Even in the layouts which had multiple pathways, those pathways would often funnel you towards the next objective or next level. D4 being much more open world, like say, world of warcraft, you need the map more to explore more.

Great video man, keep up the good work!

How does it feel to build a character? What i love most about D2 and good RPGs in general is when i can get really immersed in building and progressing a character. I also think it's very important that the process to reach end game is a lot of fun and feels meaningful. D3 had the problem, for me anyway, where i didn't care at all about my character when leveling.

I think the map issue isn't gonna be a big issue after running the maps a few 100 times. Take the D3 maps for example, after a few 100 runs on all the different maps atleast I had the maps pretty much memorized and I knew where I was going without looking at the map.

I also played from Diablo 1, I also played 2 and 3 but I found that D3 Running, with time-limits, it was to fast..which wasn't good for my health..lol.. I hope D4 gives a bit more of a chiller experience. Great video btw Rhyk!

I'm new to the Diablo franchise, never played any game before D4. Your video is awesome and i can tell you have pretty objective critiques even tho you're familiar with this franchise.
As a Diablo newbie, this is what i'm currently thinking about D4:
Gameplay
It feels more like a MMORPG to me rather thank ARPG. It brought me memories from Lost Ark.
Controls
They're awful, honestly. I'm playing on PC and my hands hurt quite a lot with so much clicking going on (i'm playing as a Sorcerer). I haven't found any way to remap the basic ability key, which is shame. About the overlay map: i was just like you, constantly checking the map midgame. Now, i right click where i want to go and the game traces a path to me, which is quite convenient.
Graphic/Sound Design/Art Direction/Level Design
Everything is simply AWESOME, with the exception of Level Design. In multiple occasions i was in a dungeon and/or quest and my surroundings were - to no shame - repeated in patterns. It's literally the same terrain copied and pasted. This not only gives a sense of déjà vu but makes the game look 'cheap'.
Loot and Progression
The loot system has a lot of rng. There's an RNG for the rarity of it, for the type of it, for the aspect AND the aspect property. The progression is a bit overwhelming sometimes. I have to consider multiple subsystems that i'm not familiar with yet.
Story
It's ok... The cutscenes are the best part of it (i'm talking about the rendered ones) and the game made me search more to understand the lore of Diablo. I feel like the game is lore rich but i'm not understanding any of it because i didn't play the previous games.