Diablo 4 needs to overhaul this mechanic to be more like Immortal

Diablo 4’s Pets are perfectly cute and loyal little gold collectors, but they could be so much more if the game borrowed from Diablo 3 or Immortal.

Pets are a great way to show some personality in Diablo 4. Playing as a Druid? Bring along the raven to collect some gold while the rest of your flock rips into demons from the sky. Or perhaps you became attached to the stray dog in Kyovashad and brought her with you on your adventures.

Even now, when playing as my Spiritborn, I frantically check on my little leopard cub after a big melee to make sure he’s okay – before remembering he’s mostly cosmetic, and therefore, completely invincible. But while these cute little guys are fun to travel with, and help you gather resources, Diablo 4 is still leagues behind older games in the series when it comes to this mechanic.

To be clear, I’m talking about the Pets you add by visiting Diablo 4’s wardrobe and who appear next to you on your character’s loading screen, not minions or summons, such as skeletons, Golems, wolves, etc. Those already have a function, what I’m proposing is that Blizzard finds a greater purpose for Asheara, Hratli, and the gang – and not the Diablo 2 versions of these names either.

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Diablo 4’s Pets are cute, but apart from picking up gold, they’re pointless.

Pets with purpose

The good news is, Blizzard doesn’t need to do anything radical to improve this either. As they did with Mercenaries, all they need to do is look to the past, adopt an existing mechanic, and make some improvements. With Mercs, Diablo 4 just took Diablo 3’s system and made a new group of characters for us to travel and fight alongside.

Diablo 4 already has the bare bones of the system, so now it’s just a case of building on it. For starters, there needs to be more Pets. Currently, we have a couple of dogs, baby leopards, and a crow, but in Diablo 3 we had sorts of weird and wonderful little critters to choose from. Some were tie-ins to other franchises, while we also had chickens, friendly skittering demons, and even half-formed Golems.

The good news is that the addition of the Raven in Season 7 shows that Blizzard has plans to expand the roster (fingers crossed for a Seneschal Companion skin), but I’m more concerned about functionality, especially when it comes to resource collection and even combat. There are lots of things Blizzard could do here and it could really shake things up if they did.

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Pets were brimming with character in Diablo 3.

For example, in Diablo 3, players can use the Altar of Rites to make Pets and pick up and salvage non-Legendary items – something Diablo 4 sorely needs. Currently, it’s a task we need to do manually, and after seven seasons, I love the idea of delegating or automating it – and so do many other players on Reddit.

This particular function could be added by a simple update and wouldn’t cause any disruption, it’s also something I’m fairly sure Blizzard is aware of, so let’s make it happen. However, it’s with Diablo Immortal that Pets start to get much more interesting.

A Familiar feeling

Now, technically, Diablo Immortal doesn’t have “Pets”, instead they use Familiars, who are very similar, but far more useful. They’re also more of a cross between Mercenaries and Pets, as players need to enter a contract with them and benefit from their abilities in battle.

Familiars are cute little creatures who’ll follow you around and pick up gold and items. So in many ways, they are an expanded version of Diablo 3’s Pet system, the key difference is that they can now hold their own in combat, too. Like Diablo 4, Familiars stand next to their master on the character screen.

Players can have up to four Familiars in Diablo Immortal and the system is surprisingly deep, letting players grow, level, and customize them, making Familiars an important part of their build and strategy. They’ll also fight alongside minions/summons but are technically a separate thing and something any class can use.

Diablo Immortal doesn’t feature Mercenaries, so this may be why Blizzard expanded the standard Pet concept and turned it into something much more useful – but I love it. It’s always something I miss when I jump from Immortal to Diablo 4, and it really shines a light on how undeveloped Pets are in Blizzard’s flagship Diablo game.

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Familiars will fight with you in Diablo Immortal.

Of course, I’m not suggesting Diablo 4 lets us have four Pets (although, I’d love it if it did), just for the game to consider adding some of these fun elements from Immortal into Diablo 4. My main concern is that Blizzard will adopt the Familiar system for a future season of Diablo 4, we’ll all love it, then never get to use it again once it ends, as with any other seasonal gimmick – and like the previously mentioned Seneshal Companion.

Also, Diablo 4 selling Pet skins as cosmetic items and including them as pre-order bonuses could muddy the waters, as could using them as rewards for completing a Seasonal Journey. But surely this is a minor issue that could be overcome with a bit of thought? Let’s be honest, Season 7 isn’t going to be the only way to unlock the Raven Pet.

Diablo 4 promised not to repeat Immortal’s mistakes when it came to pay-to-win microtransactions, and selling Pets that help out in combat could fall foul of this. But technically, Blizzard would only be charging for cosmetics, as the Pet function would be already baked into the game with the existing Pets. So, really, it would only be charging for what they look like.

This would mean that Diablo 4 would need to take a uniformed approach to how Pets fight monsters, but in truth, this wouldn’t be too different from Diablo Immortal and would still be an improvement on what we have now. It would also be an acceptable compromise if it meant having Pets that did more than just run around looking cute while gathering gold.