Diablo 4's first season has been revealed, and it kicks off rather imminently, on 20th July. It's called Season of the Malignant, and in a new post-campaign quest line, players will face off against Malignant monstrosities born of Lillith's corruption. Revealed as part of a developer live stream, a short trailer was revealed that is suitably eldritch, and we learned a little more about how the game's seasonal structure will all work.
In Season of the Malignant, players will investigate a mysterious illness plaguing the people of Sanctuary, with the aid of Cormond, a former priest of the Cathedral of the Light. Cormond, versed in all kinds of unsanctioned practices, will teach you how to harvest Malignant Hearts and convert them into build-altering powers.
These Malignant Hearts (of which there are 32 across four categories) can be placed in special Infested sockets in Jewelery, providing powerful new abilities to build around. Tracking them all down should keep players busy for a little while, and they can do so in the new Malignant Tunnels, replayable Dungeons full of fearsome foes that feature a new boss, Varshan the Consumed.
Now we get to what may or may not be a tough sell for a lot of players: Seasonal Characters. In order to take part in Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant, players will need to have beaten the Eternal Realm Campaign with at least one character. Further, they must start a new character on the Seasonal Realm (although you can skip the Campaign as per usual) from scratch to take part.
Once Season of the Malignant ends, characters on the Seasonal Realm will be transferred to the Eternal Realm, taking with them all items (including everything in your Seasonal Stash), but season-specific mechanics like the Malignant Hearts will no longer be active.
Blizzard explained the rationale behind this system, stating: "Seasons provide us with an opportunity to introduce innovative gameplay mechanics into Sanctuary for a limited time. Because Seasons reset, we can create crazy, fun Season themes in a vacuum without needing to worry about balancing it with the mechanics introduced in past or future Seasons—we start from a strong Eternal Realm baseline and build on top of it. Seasons are also a place for players to explore and tinker. We encourage you to try a new Class or different builds for a Class you’ve grown fond of—our Seasons are a chance to get creative while demolishing demons."
Season of the Malignant kicks off at the below times, depending on where on this mortal plane of existence you reside.
- North America: 10am PDT / 11am MDT / 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT
- UK/Ire: 6pm BST
- Europe: 7pm CEST / 8pm EEST
- Asia/Oceania: 2am (Fri) JST / 1am (Fri) AWST / 3am (Fri) AEST
Will you be taking part in Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant? Begin a series of arcane rituals in the comments section below.
[source news.blizzard.com]
Comments 13
This is a tough one because of the time sink involved. I was well into diablo 3's season ladders but i started playing golf seriously and started dedicating my spring and summer time to hitting the golf course and getting fitter and healthier whilst getting better at golf 🤣. So the question is do i have the spare time for diablo 4's seasonal content? I'm not so sure.
@Northern_munkey I'm in the same situation and, strangely enough, I'm also a Northern Monkey 🤣
@Ninjadeath2023 i actually live in the south west of england now but i've never forgotten my roots...come on stockport county👍
I've been holding off on creating a second character on Eternal beyond my T3 lvl60 Rogue, until I understood how the seasonal characters work. On the basis of this information I can create that second character at the start of the season and then move them back to the Eternal realm at the end... so problem solved!
@Marquez no no any character you create on season realm will disappear when the season ends, it will only be loot and cosmetics that carry over, but the character you make will be deleted
@Northern_munkey Another Stopfordian in the comments? What a small world we live in...
@ChromeSQD indeed..unfortunatly its not the place i remember which is a shame because my heart is still there.
@Uromastryx The article says characters transfer so... /
@Northern_munkey gotta listen to what the devs said and that's what I washed to hear. Their ideas behind seasons is to add to the game but wow people to not feel like they have to play the game everyday for years or miss out on something. They are respecting our time to play other games and or do other things.
If you haven't been playing diablo and poe for years, please don't tell people what's going to happen because new players are getting the wrong information and then getting upset. The new character you create for season will transfer at seasons end to the eternal realm which is the same realm you're playing right now.
@Cutmastavictory eh?
I just want to know what the class they release will be.
Yeah i planning on starting my 2nd character when the season begins, tempted by the Druid class at the moment.
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