What you need to know
- At Gamescom 2023 opening night, Blizzard announced Season 2 of Diablo 4, The Season of Blood.
- The games second season will commence on October 17 and will introduce a new questline, Vampiric powers and 5 additional endgame bosses.
- You will no longer need to earn paragon points, skill points, potion charges and more if you've earnt them on a previous seasonal or eternal character.
As Gamescom 2023 unveils new announcements and trailers, Blizzard surprised everyone with a new trailer for Season 2 of Diablo 4, dubbed Season of Blood. The current Season 1 ‘of the Malignant’ started just a few weeks ago, but it seems that Blizzard wants to keep the players’ interest alive with a tease for this new seasonal content. You can watch the trailer for Season of Blood below, which will begin on October 17 this fall.
"At the behest of their dark master, a newly turned army of ravenous vampires has set their sights on Sanctuary. The master’s sinister plot remains a shrouded mystery but their pursuit for the blood of innocents has caused an uproar. You must learn to hunt the hunter—your fate depends on it." teases the blog update Blizzard also published today. Season of Blood will bring with it a new Questline, as did the previous seasonal content, which will award players with powerful vampiric abilities.
In addition to this we can look forward to 5 new endgame bosses which are said to be 'new and returning foes', could we be getting to fight Asteroth or Andariel again? I hope so as these were two of the best fights in the main campaign and fans are eager for more.
As promised in the most recent updates from the Campfire Chats, Diablo 4 will be making it easier to target-farm specific Unique and Uber Unique items in the game. This will be welcome, as the insane rarity of some of these items has sparked some debates among the fan base on ‘when is rare too rare?’
We can also expect some long-awaited quality-of-life updates to things like the gem stash, which I myself have been frustrated with during the first season, being able to search and sort our inventories, and changes to status effects like Vulnerable, Overpower, Critical Strike Damage and Elemental Resistances.
Perhaps the most controversial part of the update:
- "Paragon Points, Skill Points, Potion Charges, and Obol capacity upgrades will now carry over into a new Season once achieved with an Eternal or previous Seasonal Realm character."
I say controversial because Seasons in Diablo have always been about a complete reset for your gameplay, and it’s something ARPG fans really enjoy. I always said that the Season Reset was essential to the gameplay loop but with Season of the Malignant not quite hitting the mark for me I’m willing to try whatever new tricks Blizzard has up its sleeve, and it will be interesting to see if this keeps more players sticking around. This will be any skill points gained from renown, not all of your skill points, but it’s still a pretty bold change.
Diablo 4 is certainly more of a level grind than its predecessor, Diablo 3, so perhaps a shake-up to the formula is needed. We can expect to hear more details about the new season, Season of Blood, in the weeks leading up to its start date. Let’s hope the changes made pay off.
