July 20th marks the start of Diablo 4’s first season, called Season of the Malignant, adding a new 90-tier battle pass of in-game cosmetics to unlock.
Seasons in Diablo 4 are entirely post-game, meaning you have to have first beaten the campaign with at least one character in order to create a seasonal character. As with Diablo 3, to access seasonal content, you must make a brand new character for that season.
However, you won’t have to start completely over. Blizzard recently announced that seasonal characters will retain all previous map progress, world renown, and Altars of Lilith that Eternal (non-Seasonal) characters have accrued. Note that for this first season, you’ll need to first log in with your existing characters to unlock that progress in the season.
Seasonal characters can also simply skip the campaign, and are given their horse mounts immediately upon starting. Once the season is over (about three months), the seasonal characters then become Eternal characters and can be played whenever, in preparation for playing a new seasonal character.
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.
Season of the Malignant will feature new corrupted enemies, which drop Malignant Hearts. By performing a special ritual, players can transmute these hearts into gem-like objects that can be placed into special infested sockets.
The best place to run into these monsters are new Malignant Tunnels, a new, highly repayable dungeon type that features its own boss battle.
The seasonal battle pass features 90 tiers, 27 of which are free for everyone to unlock (the full battle pass costs $9.99). Free tiers include some cosmetic items, as well as Smoldering Ashes, which can be turned on for limited-time Season Blessings, such as bonus XP or gold.
Season of the Malignant begins July 20. Diablo 4 is available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. It’s rated M for Mature.
