Season 1

Information on Diablo 4 Season 1

Start date: 20 July.

New features such as Legendaries and uniques will be available on the Eternal world on 18 July. The Season will start on 20th.

See Patch notes (v1.1.0a) for all the changes and additions for Season 1, Season of the Malignant.

Season 1 Theme

A deviant form of Lilith’s sinister machinations has given birth to a new threat, Malignant Monsters. These decaying abominations roam Sanctuary in a frenzy, mindlessly attacking anyone in range without hesitation. Wanderers will investigate this mysterious malady in a new Questline with the help of Cormond, a former priest of the Cathedral of Light, who also trains you to capture the Malignant Hearts fueling these foul beasts and convert them into build-altering powers. The malignancy that’s taken hold of the Burning Hells’ armies cannot remain unchecked—you must snuff it out at the source before all of Sanctuary becomes its thrall.

Read more about Malignant Hearts

Season 1 Content

• These events occur following those of the main campaign involving Lilith and Inarius.
• The Seasonal Questline is not a continuation of the main campaign, but is a new, self-contained side story that will exist only in the Seasonal Realm.
• The new questline begins in Kyovashad and will start immediately following the creation of a new seasonal character.
• Cormond is the new principal NPC who has turned to you for help after failing on his own to undo the Malignancy.
• The spreading Malignancy can affect all creatures in Sanctuary, including beasts, demons, and humans; turning them into bloodthirsty fiends that are bent on destroying everything.
• The Season also features a new Boss Battle with Varshan the Consumed.

To keep up with the relentless animosity of Malignant Monsters, you’ll need to turn their Hearts against them. Slaying Partly Corrupted enemies, a type of Malignant Monster, will drop a Malignant Heart. These can be captured by performing a ritual with the Cage of Binding, an item acquired during the Season’s Questline. Partly Corrupted enemies are an unruly sort and won’t go down easily. Trying to capture the Heart will cause the Partly Corrupted enemy to be reborn as a Fully Corrupted enemy. If defeated, these amalgamations of rot will drop a version of the Malignant Heart that can be placed into special Infested sockets in your Jewelry in place of a Normal Gem.

Our first season will introduce 32 Malignant Hearts across four categories that provide new, unique bonuses. As you encounter more menacing Malignant Creatures so too will the strength of their Malignant Hearts grow. There’s much more to share on the Season’s theme and we cannot wait to do so in the future.

One of the best places to acquire Malignant Hearts are in the new Malignant Tunnels, highly replayable Dungeons teeming with fearsome foes to eradicate. Scour this dank system of tunnels for the catalyst of Malignant Monsters and go toe-to-toe against Varshan the Consumed, the newest Boss battle, if you dare.

• Any Elite enemy will have the potential to spawn as Partly Corrupted, which will drop a Malignant Heart after being slayed.
• Players may then attempt to collect the Heart with the Cage of Binding ritual, which will spawn an even more powerful, Fully Corrupted, version of that enemy.
• The player will be able to collect the Caged Heart after successfully defeating the Fully Corrupted enemy.
• Caged Hearts may drop in one of four different colors, which correspond to different categories of Legendary powers. The first three colors correspond specifically to color-coded infested sockets in jewelry, and the fourth, and most rare, color is universal.
• Caged Hearts will function similarly to Legendary Gems, which can be inserted into only infested jewelry sockets of a matching color, and will grant the character new abilities leading to powerful and radically new builds for all classes.
• All jewelry may drop with any one of the three different color-coded infested sockets, including those items obtained from Tortured Gifts in Helltides as well as from gambling.
• Randomly colored Infested sockets may also be added to an item at the Jeweler. Caged Hearts will be destroyed if removed from a jewelry item.
• Players will be searching for jewelry items with sockets of a specific color depending on which Caged Heart they wish to use.
• The strength of the Hearts will increase as the player progresses through the Season. Unsocketed Hearts that are no longer wanted can be salvaged to produce a special resource, which can then be used to craft Invokers.
• Upon completion of the Seasonal Questline, players may enter Malignant Tunnels, which are new areas throughout Sanctuary with a higher chance for Malignant Elites to spawn and the most efficient method of farming Caged Hearts.
• Malignant Growths will spawn in a few different colors at the end of a Malignant Tunnel. Players will choose to interact with one of these Growths, depending on which color Heart they wish to obtain.
• Interacting with a Malignant Growth using a crafted Invoker will spawn a Malignant enemy. In this situation, the player can obtain the Caged Heart immediately after slaying the enemy and will not need to perform the Cage of Binding ritual.
• Players may also encounter the new Boss, Varshan the Consumed, while venturing through Malignant Tunnels.

Battle Pass

• Each Seasonal Chapter includes several objectives that players will want to progress through.
• However, it will not be necessary to complete all the objectives in a given chapter in order to advance to the next chapter.
• Completing chapters will reward players with Seasonal items as well as new Legendary Aspects.
• The final chapter of the Season Journey promises to be quite challenging and will reward players with exclusive titles and cosmetics.
• The Battle Pass is a base feature of Seasons that is available to all players free of charge.
• Completing various Seasonal objectives and chapters will reward players with Favor, which is then used to progress the Battle Pass.
• All other activities not necessarily associated with the Seasonal Journey, such as side dungeons and the Tree of Whispers, will also reward Favor toward Battle Pass progression.
• The Premium Battle Pass, which offers only additional cosmetics, can be purchased in game and is completely optional.

Cosmetics

• All of the Armor cosmetics are class agnostic and can be equipped by any character once they have been earned.
• Weapon cosmetics will be class specific in the same way as the weapons themselves.
• All cosmetics unlocked at any time will be available to all charactes in both the Seasonal and Eternal Realms forever.

Renown Confirmation

• Map fully revealed.
• Altars of Lilith already collected will be still collected at the start of the Season. No need to redo them.
• Five skill points to start.
• Simply put, your Renown collected so far and up to 18 July from the game carries over.

Advice before Season Starts

• Complete the Main Campaign and reach Level 50 or higher on at least one character.
• Completely uncover the Fog of War, which means discovering every area in all five regions currently available in Sanctuary.
• Unlock all of the Altars of Lilith, including those that reward Paragon Points and increased Obol storage capacity. We recommend using the Interactive Map to assist you in finding all of them.
• After downloading the Season Patch on or after July 18th, login to the game with the character that has accomplished the most progress in the Eternal Realm. This will function to propagate the maximum progress to your Seasonal roster as well as to the remaining characters on your Eternal roster.