The Darkening of Tristram event was announced at BlizzCon 2016 to celebrate the Diablo Franchise’s 20th Anniversary.
The event now runs every year in the month of January only. This event has been made to look like the old Diablo 1 with pixelated graphics and directional movement has been reduced to eight directions. Although it has been given a retro look, it’s not exactly the same as it uses Diablo 3 assets.
Blizzard recommends players undertake this event with a new character although any existing character can be used to play this time-limited mode. In this The Darkening of Tristram guide, we take you through the process of taking part in the event and detail its rewards.
Where is the Darkening of Tristram?
- Players tackle a 16 level dungeon which can be accessed from the Adventure Mode menu and by entering The Old Ruins (see map above).
- Once inside The Old Ruins, head south until you see a blue portal. Enter the portal and retro-vision mode kicks in.
- To enter the first dungeon, head north to the Cathedral and enter. The event will then begin.
- Players must reach level 16 and take on Diablo to earn the Red Soulstone Reward.
Within The Darkening of Tristram, players will come across bosses such as The Butcher (Level 2), Skeleton King (Level 3), Lazarus, and Diablo himself.
Unique monsters from Diablo also inhabit the levels but they look the same as the current monsters in Diablo 3. They will however drop Diablo 1 items such as Godly Plate of the Whale.
Diablo 1 NPCs such as Pepin, Griswold , Farnham and Ogden also appear in the game but this time as corpses but are part of a special quest based on the Diablo 1 Black Mushroom quest.
The Black Mushroom quest in The Darkening of Tristram involves:
- Reaching level nine and finding The Black Mushroom.
- Return to town and visit Adria.
- Click the cauldron to obtain the Witch’s brew.
- Take the brew to Farnham’s corpse
- Take Drunkard’s Debt from Ogden’s corpse
- Take Gard’s letter to Peppin’s corpse
- Take Healer’s Prescription to Griswold’s corpse
- Go to the blacksmith and craft the recipe to create the leg as a mace.
The Darkening of Tristram Rewards
- Banners – Ogden’s Sign and Ogden’s Brew – All bosses must be killed.
- Pets such as The Butcher Pet (complete The Darkening of Tristram with a level 1 character) and Royal Calf (salvage Wirt’s leg to obtain a map. Go to Adria’s Hut and click the cow corpses in the correct sequence of middle, left, then right. Go to the Abandoned Farmstead entrance and open Wirt’s stash.
- Transmog weapons of The Butcher’s Cleaver and Wirt’s Leg.
Portraits
To obtain the Demon portrait, every unique monster must be killed in the dungeons and are found on the following levels.
- Level 2 — Rotfeast the Hungry, Shadowbite
- Level 3 — Brokenhead Bangshield, Madeye the Dead,
- Level 4 — Blacklash the Burning, Gharbad the Weak, Snotspill
- Level 5 — Bloodskin Darkbow, Foulwing, Shadowcrow
- Level 6 — Bilefroth the Pit Master, BloodgutterDeathshade, Fleshmaul
- Level 7 — Blighthorn Steelmace, Gorestone, Nightwing the Cold
- Level 8 — Baron Sludge, Firewound the Grim, Zhar the Mad
- Level 9 — Breakspine, Brokenstorm, Oozedrool
- Level 10 — Blackstorm, The Flayer, Goldblight of the Flame
- Level 11 — Bluehorn, Fangspeir
- Level 12 — Lionskull the Bent, Viperflame, Viletouch
- Level 13 — Rustweaver, Warlord of Blood, Witchmoon
- Level 14 — Graywar the Slayer, Steelskull the Hunter, Stareye the Witch
- Level 15 — The Vizier
- Unholy Altar — Blackjade, Red Vex
- Level 16 — Sir Gorash
To obtain the Angel portrait players need to hunt down Temporal Priests in all five acts of Diablo 3 and they drop a total of seven Cultist’s Pages. Once all seven are collected players earn the Achievement ‘I Sense a Soul in Search of Answers’.
The Darkening of Tristram is also referenced in the Diablo 1 Manual.