With the Diablo series making a return after an eleven-year-long hiatus in sequels, you’ll likely
want to be rushing through the game’s content as fast as possible once it launches on June 6th
this year. But with any journey, useful tips and information are always helpful to aid you in
Diablo 4’s quest to stop Lillith, the queen of succubi, and that’s what we here at Gaming
Instincts are hoping to accomplish.
Today, we’re going to be taking a look at Diablo 4’s endgame, and provide some key
information about it, to make sure that you have the best experience once this long-awaited title
launches on June 6th.
5 – World tiers make a return, but with some key changes
Any RPG that wants to keep fans playing for years on end almost requires to have an endgame
that is not only fun but will also keep players busy for hours on end. And with almost thirty years
of experience, Blizzard Entertainment has certainly mastered the art of the endgame. One of the
biggest news drops for this game has to do with the amount of endgame content there is.
Compared to previous games, Diablo 4’s endgame content is going to be MUCH greater in
quantity.
But despite the plethora of additions being added to Diablo 4’s endgame which we haven’t seen
before in previous games, Diablo 4 will still be keeping the essentials. World-tiers are making a
return, with the difficulties being sectioned off into five different levels of scaling difficulty, these
being Adventurer, Veteran, Nightmare, Hell, and Torment.
However, there will also be some changes being made to the difficulty levels as well, most
notably with the Nightmare Dungeons system. This system works by locking off the highest
difficulty for dungeons behind Nightmare Seals, which can only be obtained from the new
Whispers of the Dead events.
4 – New events are making an coming
Speaking of which, Whispers of the Dead is another new feature being added to Diablo 4, which
are essentially world objectives that can be found across the world of Sanctuary. Aside from
being the only way we currently know of dropping nightmare seals, Whispers of the Dead
objectives will also reward players with gold, experience, and even Legendary items.
On top of this, a unique currency, known as grim favors, is also dropped within these objectives,
and these can be traded at the Tree of Whispers in exchange for loot and gold. However, like a
lot of these new features, Whispers of the Dead events will not be playable until you at least
finish the main storyline, so don’t get your hopes up thinking that you can run nightmare
dungeons right out of the gate.
However, Whispers of the Dead isn’t the only new event being added to Diablo 4’s endgame.
Another events system which is being called “Helltide” is also making its debut appearance. Like
Whispers of the Dead, Helltide can only be accessed after finishing the main story and they
must be on World Tier: Nightmare. And these are just a few examples of some of the new
events that are coming to Diablo 4.
3 – Seasons from Diablo 3 are making a return
If you’re still playing Diablo 3 in 2023, then it’s likely due to the seasons that get released, well,
seasonally. Equivalent to the ladders from Diablo 2, seasons were introduced in 2014, and have
been such a massive success in player retention, that Blizzard has implemented them in Diablo
Immortal, and now Diablo 4.
Seasons will act almost identical to those of Diablo 3, with each new season bringing with it new
gameplay mechanics, storylines, and, of course, Legendary loot. The first season plans to
launch shortly after the game's release, and Blizzard has confirmed that there will be four
seasons per year moving forward. Just like in Diablo 3, you will have to begin a fresh character
for every season.
2 – There will be a fully realized open world, with plenty to discover
With there being over a decade in between Diablo 4 and the previous main entry to the series,
Diablo 4 has set out to be much more ambitious than its predecessor. Not only will Diablo 4 be a
fully realized open-world, its map being somewhere between ten to twenty times larger than
former titles. This gives the game plenty of room for its many new modes and areas, many of
which have seemed to have been taken out of World of Warcraft.
World bosses are one such example, which if you’re unaware, are very powerful bosses found
in the open world which are made to be fought in groups for some high-level rewards. There will
also be a new and improved PvP mode called ‘Fields of Hatred’. Unlike PvP in Diablo 3’s
Brawling mode, which allows players to engage in direct combat with each other, the Field of
Hatred will be more objective-based and requires players to balance completing objectives,
while also fighting off other players.
On top of this, there will be a plethora of secret areas and dungeons to explore, and with over
one-hundred settlements scattered throughout Sanctuary, you’ll be sure to never be short on
quests!
1 – There are huge changes to how item rarity works
Another change that Blizzard is making to the Diablo’s dungeon crawler formula is with how
they’re treating item rarities. Blizzard wanted to remedy the issue of players destroying virtually
any item that wasn’t a Legendary, without removing the clarity of progression that tiered items
provide, and they’re doing this by buffing the potential power of items which are Rare-tier and
greater in the endgame, and making the powers of Legendary items randomized.
This means that although Legendary items will typically be more powerful in most
circumstances, players could find it more useful to instead equip a Magic or Rare item that
better caters to their build. Blizzard’s making this change with the hopes that players will stop
“ignoring every item that doesn’t have a glowing orange sky-beam”, as lead game designer Joe
Shely puts it.
Furthermore, Mythic items, which were teased at BlizzCon 2019, have been removed from the
game for the same reason: they would have rendered other rarities of items obsolete. Instead,
the idea for randomized Legendary powers has been implemented to Legendary items, and
Mythic gear has been replaced with Unique items. As the name implies, Unique-tiered items will
be very thematic with its abilities, and have a distinct visual design to them. These items were
made with the intention of player builds being built around them to maximize their potential.
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