Popular Twitch streamer and content creator Asmongold has voiced his less-than-approving opinion on Diablo 4‘s latest endgame content, The Gauntlet. The new mode, meant to be a battleground for the best of players, has left much to be desired, with the streamer worryingly asking: “Is this it?”
The Gauntlet is a new endgame challenge mode added as part of Season 3 in Patch 1.3.3, and was meant to be a testing ground for players seeking to try out their endgame builds. However,it was poorly received by the Diablo 4 community, including streamer and YouTuber Asmongold, who commented on another streamer’s playthrough on Mar. 6.
“So this is it? Wasn’t this map already in the game?” the streamer asked regarding The Gauntlet’s main level, which players are supposed to go through over and over again to gain as many points as possible and have their name imprinted on the leaderboards.
Asmongold was particularly surprised by the fact that The Gauntlet has a single level, making the whole experience quite repetitive and, considering the leaderboards, not a very popular one. YouTuber and streamer Raxxanterax, to whom Asmongold reacted during his stream, placed in the top 10 on The Gauntlet’s Solo Barbarian leaderboards, even though it’s supposed to represent the “Top 1000.” There were also only two pages in the leaderboards with 10 players per page, meaning there were no more than 20 Barbarian players who had completed The Gauntlet and received a placement. “Is anyone even playing this game?” Asmongold asked.
Raxxanterax himself quit the game soon after completing his Gauntlet run and returned to Last Epoch, the latest fad among ARPG fans, which recently left Early Access with a massive 1.0 update.
Asmongold later noted that The Gauntlet challenge mode had been delayed by Diablo 4 developers to “polish things up,” as one Diablo executive put it. Season 3 was seen as a disappointment by the player base, and whether or not the developers can turn things around remains to be seen. For now, Last Epoch is swiftly filling the void with hundreds of thousands of players and a stable spot in Steam’s top 10.
