The Enigmatic Presence of Goblins in Diablo 4

I am about to complain about my fondness for goblins in Diablo 4. Why would anyone dislike them? They’re loot on legs: erratic little demons who unleash torrents of treasure if you manage to catch them and eliminate them before they create a portal and escape. Defeating one feels like defeating a boss, considering the loot that drops from them—it truly explodes—except you don’t have to navigate through a dungeon to find them, and they don’t fight back. They are fleetingly present, right before you, igniting a rush of greed as you dive headfirst to take them down.

Treasure goblins are how I got drawn back into Diablo 4 over the Christmas season. The entire game was brimming with them. Blizzard, clearly leveraging their Santa Claus-like appeal—treasure goblins are small, spindly demons that carry bags of riches—decided not only to double the number of treasure goblins that appeared in Diablo 4 but also to increase their spawn rate, meaning these creatures were everywhere. Moreover, eliminating them contributed to a collective kill count that rewarded players, at certain milestones, with caches containing even more loot.

Reader, I indulged. I filled my bags with so many oranges—my informal term for legendaries (and sought-after loot)—that I could hardly distinguish between them and didn’t genuinely mind. Drops that were once relatively rare became so common that my dopamine levels barely reacted. I salvaged most without even glancing at them. I just couldn’t stop myself—I could not stop playing. I felt like a child in a frenzy around the Christmas tree, ripping open presents in the game with a frenzied desire for more. I was quite pleased when sparkly January arrived.

However, this morning I read, with growing excitement, that Blizzard plans to repeat the event. A new March of the Goblins event is set to kick off today, 4th March, and this will increase the number of goblins in the realm once again. It might even go a step further, not only allowing packs of goblins to roam the land—but does that mean they’ll appear in groups larger than two?!—and a meta-event offering additional rewards for vanquishing them, as well as new variant goblin types.

There will be a goblin that divides into more goblins upon its demise, similar to a slime; there are goblins themed around gold, crafting materials, Obols, and gems/runes/prisms, which drop those specific items; and of course, there will be a goblin boss called the Treasure General Fedric, who will be challenging to find but possesses the rarest treasures of all: Mythic Gorgeous items (along with the hard-to-obtain Gorgeous Spark crafting resource). For one more week, it will be a treasure goblin extravaganza.

On one hand, I’m all in. Blizzard knows how to pull a player of a loot-driven game back in, and I commend the ludicrous abundance of it all. One of my favorite experiences in all of Diablo 3 was finding myself inside the treasure goblins’ realm one day, after stepping through one of their portals and suddenly being whisked away to different locations. I battled a boss named Greed there, who exploded into a shower of loot and gold when defeated. It was fantastic. I also appreciate the effort Blizzard is making to create an immersive environment in Diablo 4, making it seem alive and as though something is always happening there—truly, it does feel that way. However, I am starting to worry that they are relying too much on the treasure goblins.

We have experienced the March of the Goblins event a few times before (though amusingly, not during March), meaning that in one and a half years since the game launched, we have had—if you count the Christmas festivity—four treasure goblin overloads. That’s quite substantial. Clearly, people enjoy it, yet it will likely become a case of diminishing returns if Blizzard reaches for the goblin sack repeatedly