An ancient evil threatens to engulf Sanctuary in darkness, and new heroes have been called upon to face challenges the world has never seen before.

True to the franchise’s roots, Diablo IV will deliver visceral combat, gruesome and varied monsters, an epic hunt for legendary loot, and endless playability and progression. Players will find a lifetime’s worth of adventure scattered across a land rooted in unique ecologies and inhabited by dangerous new foes. They’ll delve into randomized dungeons packed with unpredictable adversaries and unimaginable treasures. While continuing to fully support solo and coordinated party play, Diablo IV will also provide opportunities for groups of players to encounter each other in the same shared world—whether to tackle bigger challenges . . . or possibly even slaughter one another in player-vs.-player combat.

In Diablo IV, players will attempt to bring hope back to the world by vanquishing evil in all its vile incarnations—from cannibalistic demon-worshipping cultists to the all-new drowned undead that emerge from the coastlines to drag their victims to a watery grave. For the first time in the series, Sanctuary will be a contiguous, seamless landmass comprising diverse regions ranging from the burning desert of Kejhistan, to the verdant werewolf-infested forests of Scosglen, to the harsh and rugged wilderness of the Dry Steppes.

In Blizzard’s latest Developer Update Livestream, Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson, associate game director Joseph Piepiora, product management director Kegan Clark, and associate director of community Adam Fletcher covered how Diablo IV’s Seasons, optional Battle Pass, and The Shop will work.

THE POST-LAUNCH EXPERIENCE

• Post-launch content covers the player experience throughout new seasons, the Season Journey, Battle Pass rewards, new features, long-term maintenance, balancing the game, and updates.
• Seasons in Diablo IV will arrive in the weeks following launch, starting with Season 1. Each season will include a new gameplay feature and questline that introduces new characters, challenges, legendary aspects, meta changes, and quality of life improvements. 
• Each season is supported by its own Season Journey. As players progress through the Season Journey, players can earn rewards and gain progress toward the Battle Pass, however, you cannot accelerate the Season Journey.
• The Battle Pass is a way to earn rewards and contains both Free Tier and Premium Tier that can be unlocked by progressing in the game.
• Free Tiers provide gameplay boosts unlocked by simply playing the game, allowing seasonal characters to level faster. 
• Premium Tiers are unlocked by purchasing the Premium Pass. With the Premium Pass, playing through the game willallow players to unlock Premium Currency for the Shop used to purchase seasonally themed cosmetics. Players will not be able to buy power with the Premium Tiers.
• Building on top of the hundreds of armor and weapon styles players can unlock in the game, the Shop serves to offer players even more diverse cosmetic options. Nothing offered in the Shop grants a direct or indirect gameplay advantage, only cosmetics that will be on rotation periodically.

EXPLORING DIABLO IV’S POST-LAUNCH EXPERIENCES

Stoking the Flames of Hell: Seasons

Seasons are quarterly releases that will add additional gameplay features, questlines (with new and old faces alike), Battle Passes, Legendary Items, class balance changes, quality-of-life improvements, and much more. Seasons will introduce fresh concepts and ideas into the world of Sanctuary, for all wanderers to enjoy while simultaneously iterating upon your baseline experience. Above all, we want Seasons to be celebratory moments; something to look forward to and enjoy with your friends and other members of the Diablo community.

Season 1 will begin in mid to late July, and to embark on this next chapter, you must first complete the Campaign. Because of this, we recommend you begin your pursuit of Lilith in advance so you can jump into the first Season as soon as it becomes available.

Progressing Through the Season Journey and Earning Rewards

If Seasons are the night’s sky, then the Season Journey is the North Star, your guiding light. Players can look to the Season Journey for details on the new content available to them. The Season Journey will be invaluable in helping you quickly level-up your Battle Pass, as this is done through completing Chapters that are comprised of Objectives. Completing all Objectives in a Chapter will score you Seasonal rewards, such as useful Crafting Materials and Legendary Aspects for your Codex of Power.

Each objective also rewards an amount of Favor, the resource used to level up through the Tiers of the Battle Pass. Favor can also be obtained from completing quests, slaying monsters, participating in events, and more.

Injecting Variety with the Optional Battle Pass

With each Season comes a new Battle Pass for you to earn rewards from, containing 27 Free Tiers and 63 Premium Tiers. You can earn Cosmetics and Smoldering Ashes from the Free Tiers just by slaying demons as you normally would. Smoldering Ashes are a resource that can be spent on Season Blessings, which provide you with a bonus to earning XP, Gold, or Obols depending on which Blessings you spend Ashes on. Players can have more than one Season Blessing active at a time and can use additional Ashes to upgrade the bonus they receive. The bonuses gained from Season Blessings only last until that respective Season ends. Since Season Blessings affect gameplay, you must meet certain Character Level requirements to claim the Smoldering Ashes needed to apply Blessings. This ensures they are earned by achieving gameplay requirements and there is no advantage gained from purchasing Tier Skips.

To earn rewards from the Premium Tiers, a player must purchase the Premium Battle Pass. This upgraded track of the Battle Pass will not provide any in-game power, but instead unlocks tiers that provide Cosmetics unique to that Season and the Platinum currency. Platinum can be spent in the Shop to acquire new Cosmetics that sculpt you into the wanderer you wish to become or put towards the purchase of future Battle Passes. Platinum can only be acquired using real currency, such as USD.

Overall, there are three versions of the Battle Pass available. The Free Battle Pass, simply called Battle Pass, the Premium Battle Pass, which will cost 1,000 Platinum (equivalent of $9.99 USD), and the Accelerated Battle Pass, which includes all perks of the Premium Battle Pass, 20 Tier Skips, a special cosmetic, and will cost 2,800 Platinum (equivalent of $24.99 USD).

Reinforcing Your Character’s Fantasy: The Shop

Through slaying demons across Sanctuary, you can acquire hundreds of transmogs, weapons, and pieces of armor, including dozens of armor sets, all available to players at launch. The role of Shop Cosmetics is to provide greater breadth in customization options, allowing you to reinforce the fantasy of choice for your character—none of the Cosmetics sold in the Shop provide anything greater than aesthetic variety. Diablo is a dark, gritty, fantasy game, and its purchasable Cosmetics will reinforce this theme. In comparison to the Class-agnostic Cosmetics earned from the Battle Pass, the Cosmetics offered in the Shop are meant to reinforce class-specific fantasies, so there will be some Cosmetics unique to particular Classes. The Shop is intended to be an avenue of self-expression for our players, and they can interact with it as much or as little as they desire during their time in Sanctuary.

The Cosmetics sold in the Shop will rotate on a consistent basis and must be purchased with Platinum. Once you have purchased a Cosmetic for a Class, it will be usable for all characters of that Class on your account. Diablo IV also contains a cross-purchase feature, where any Platinum or items acquired with Platinum are tied to your Battle.net account and can be accessed on any platform where you play the game. The Shop has been built for transparency; using the Preview function, you can thoroughly inspect any Cosmetic you’re thinking of purchasing to ensure it feels right for you. Our Shop is also intelligent; using your playstyle and aesthetic preferences, it will recommend Cosmetics that support the wanderer you want to become.

*Legendary Armor earned through gameplay (left) versus Armor Cosmetics purchased from the Shop (right).

Diablo IV is being developed using modern technology that pushes the franchise to dark, new depths. This technology is at the heart of everything players will see, hear, and feel—delivering much higher fidelity and a more engrossing experience. It opens up countless possibilities for the Diablo series, from smooth character animations, such as the Druid’s fluid shapeshifting, to the seamless, vast overworld players will travel across in search of the next loot-filled underground dungeon. Ultimately, Diablo IV will ground players in a grittier and deadlier world.

Diablo IV is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC on June 6, 2023.