Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred revives the action-RPG series' 24-year-old tradition of letting you hire mercenaries to fight alongside you

Diablo 4's new merc using his shield to help someone — (Image credit: Blizzard)

Thanks to a mercenary gang known as the Pale Hand, you're getting some help when Diablo 4's Vessel of Hatred expansion releases. But only if you fancy it.

As revealed during Opening Night Light, Blizzard is re-introducing a series-favorite feature to Diablo 4 when the DLC launches that lets you call upon a group of mercenaries to help with the dirty work.

Details are light right now, though we've seen mercenaries in previous Diablo games, so I imagine we're getting a similar deal. As we see from the trailer, the Pale Hand comprises a shield bearer, a scoundrel, a berserker, and a wee demon. You can tap them up to help you loot hell to your heart's content. Each has its own strengths, though which is best for you likely depends on the class you're rolling with. Using a glass cannon build? Let the shield bearer help you out.

It remains to be seen how Blizzard is improving what we've seen in Diablo before, but it'll fun to find out. Diablo 3 had followers you could toss your old gear to, which is handy as it keeps them alive longer and allows you to ignore that loot-hoarding habit more so.

Elsewhere in the trailer, we found out that Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred is also getting a new PvE co-op dungeon that sounds like a full-blown raid. Game director Brent Gibson describes it as a "multi-layered dungeon" that sounds like we're getting control over how it plays out and the sorts of loot we'll get.

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred launched on October 8.

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