Diablo IV’s first-ever season in their long-term content schedule, Season of the Malignant, is officially live now! Dive into Sanctuary to take on the dangerous, new Malignant Monsters and team up with a former priest of the Cathedral of Light, Cormond, to capture their Malignant Hearts and use their power to your advantage. Starting this Season, they are also kicking off the very first Season Journey and Battle Pass where everyone can earn Favor and Season boosts just by playing the game, or cosmetics if you choose to purchase the paid tier of the Battle Pass.
As a reminder, seasons give all players an opportunity to start the Season Journey fresh with the new features and gameplay mechanics that have been added.
- With everyone on an even playing field, players can try out new classes and builds that they have been curious about—or journey through the season with an established favorite class/build—while engaging in the seasonal mechanics for a new experience.
- Leveling up a new character doesn’t require starting from scratch, as it brings with it the previous renown gained from discovering the map and the benefits from the Altars of Lilith players have found. To ensure your renown carries over to your seasonal character, login with your eternal character that has the most progress first.
- If you have the mount unlocked, you will also be able to use it immediately on your new character.
- After each season concludes, all characters will be migrated to the Eternal Realm, where players will be able to access them permanently.
Details as shared on the official website:
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.
The 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 they cannot wait to do so in the future.
One of the best places to acquire Malignant Hearts is 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.
With Season of the Malignant beginning on July 20, they wanted to take a moment to equip you with everything you need to know about Seasons.
To participate in Seasons, a new character must be made on the Seasonal Realm. You do not need to purchase a Battle Pass or any add-ons to play the Seasonal content, but you must have completed the campaign on either the Eternal or Seasonal Realm with at least one character. Once you have completed the Campaign, any Seasonal character will start the game with:
- The option to skip the Campaign.
- Your Mount is available immediately.
- All previously discovered Altars of Lilith unlocked, and the corresponding Renown for them.
- All previously discovered areas on the map revealed, and the corresponding renown for them.
Once the Season has ended, the character you made and its progress will be transferred to the Eternal Realm. All items you collected, including in your Seasonal stash, will be transferred too. You can take this character into Sanctuary whenever you please, but Season-specific features such as Malignant Hearts will no longer be accessible.
Their Beliefs Behind Seasons
Seasons provide them with an opportunity to introduce innovative gameplay mechanics into Sanctuary for a limited time. Because Seasons reset, They 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—they start from a strong Eternal Realm baseline and build on top of it.
Seasons are also a place for players to explore and tinker. They encourage you to try a new Class or different builds for a Class you’ve grown fond of—their Seasons are a chance to get creative while demolishing demons.
Additionally, Seasons present an equal playing field. Their Seasons are designed for new characters to conquer the nightmarish challenges brought on by a Season’s theme and to progress through the Seasonal Journey together.
EARN REWARDS WITH THE SEASON JOURNEY AND BATTLE PASS
As you hunt down Malignant Monsters for their build-enhancing Hearts and partner with Cormond to discover the source of the corruption, you’ll earn rewards from the Season Journey and Battle Pass.
The Season Journey is broken into Chapters with tasks to complete. As you progress through the Journey, you’ll earn rewards befitting Sanctuary’s defender, such as new Legendary Aspects, a Mastery Title, and a Scroll of Amnesia, which provides a free Skill Tree and Paragon Board reset. The Journey also provides Favor—the resource used to climb through the Battle Pass’ Tiers—which is also earned naturally by playing the game, whether it be killing demons, completing Quests, and more.
The Season of the Malignant Battle Pass begins on July 20th, 10 a.m. PDT and hosts 90 Tiers, 27 Free Tiers and 63 Premium Tiers. Smoldering Ashes are earned from the Free Tiers, which can be spent on Season Blessings that provide you with a bonus to earning experience, Gold, or Obols depending on the Blessing you choose. The bonuses gained from Season Blessings only last until Season of the Malignant ends.
If you get the Premium Battle Pass, not only will the rewards of the Free Tiers will be yours to wield as you choose, but Awoken Armor Sets, Mount and Mount Armor, Platinum, and more await you!
If you purchased the digital Deluxe or Ultimate Edition of Diablo IV and want to redeem your Battle Pass for this Season, navigate to the Seasons section of the Shop and select the option to activate your Battle Pass. Players also have the option to skip Tiers by spending Platinum at a cost of 200 Platinum per Tier skip. Keep in mind that your Tier Skip might unlock a Tier that rewards Smoldering Ashes, but you must meet certain Character Level requirements to claim them.
#DiabloIV leads Joe Shely, Joseph Piepiora, and Adam Fletcher did a deep dive on the latest patch, including why these changes were made and how patches will be handled going forward.
A summary 🧵 below: pic.twitter.com/is9pSzIyvE
— Diablo (@Diablo) July 21, 2023
