This guide covers everything you need to know about how the Seasonal System works in Diablo 4 and how you can prepare ahead of time for the next season.
What is a Season in Diablo 4
Seasons are like a fresh start server for your typical MMO would have, you play a new character in a fresh economy. However unlike other ARPGs, there is a fair bit of “horizontal progression” in Diablo 4 that carries over from season to season, so it’s not a totally fresh start, mostly to cut down on the tedium.
Each Season in Diablo 4 will last approximately 3 months. This gives even the most casual of players time to make plenty of progress. Even after the season ends, this character and progress are not lost as Seasonal Characters are converted to Eternal Characters at the end of each Season.
What is added each Season
In addition to having a mostly fresh start, each season comes with some form of Seasonal Mechanic. If a Seasonal Mechanic is well received, there’s a high chance it will be carried over into future seasons in some form. This is the case with both Season 1 and Season 2, which saw some powers returning as Uniques or Aspects.
Seasonal Story and Reputation
The Seasonal Story often expands on the lore of the Diablo universe. It generally follows a group or individual and their involvement with the current season theme. This is usually done to introduce the seasonal mechanics. Every Season gets an accompanying Seasonal Story, and the length of it varies with each season.
Almost every season also comes with a Seasonal Reputation. This is a Reputation Meter that you fill to gain ranks with a faction. This faction is usually tied to the Seasonal Story and sends you out to grind out specific content.
If you’re looking for a list of this Season’s rewards, check out out Season 4 Guide and Rewards List. This details all the earnable rewards this season, including those from the Battle Pass and Season Journey.
Battle Pass and Season Journey
As part of the Seasonal Content, each season will also come with its own Battle Pass. This is the standard fare for a Battle Pass, with a Free and Premium Track. This unlocks not only Cosmetics, but also Smouldering Ashes. These Ashes are used to unlock Seasonal Boons, which are account-wide boosts when playing in the Seasonal Realm.
Alongside the Battlepass is the Season Journey. This is a set of in-game challenges with multiple levels to them. These often have you participating in the Seasonal content, fighting bosses, and other similar tasks. They usually include PvP as well, but these are optional as you can ‘skip’ 2 tasks from each set.
For a deeper look into these systems, check out our guide to Diablo 4’s Battle Pass System. This guide details the Battle Pass and Season Journey Systems as they are closely linked.
Class Balance and Updates
New Gameplay aside, you can expect plenty of Class Balance changes, including new Aspects, Uniques, or other ways to diversify builds. These changes will persist between seasons but expect things that are overpowered or underpowered to be adjusted accordingly going into the following season.
It’s worth noting that the developers actively avoid trying to change the balance too drastically mid-patch. The only time this will occur is when a build or skill is either underperforming or overperforming due to a bug.
If you’re looking for builds to try in the new season, check out our Diablo 4 Builds Catalog. This provides easy access to all of our currently created builds.
What Carries Over from Season to Season
First, is Campaign Completion. If you’ve completed the Diablo 4 Campaign once, you never have to do it again if you so choose. There may be other reasons to do so, but you will always have the option to Skip the Campaign if you’ve completed it once with any character. This does not require a Seasonal Character to have completed the campaign.
As of Season 2, you can also opt to skip the Campaign by finishing the Prologue once. This lets you get straight into the new season even as a new player. When you have the time, the campaign is quite short but also enjoyable
As you know, unlocking the ability to use a mount in Diablo 4 is locked behind a quest, part of the Campaign.
Alongside the option to skip the campaign also comes Access to Mounts. Just like if you made a new character now (after you have done the campaign already), regardless if you choose to do the campaign again or not, you will have access to your mount from level 1.
Next are certain Renown Tasks, specifically Altars of Lilith and Map Exploration. These carry over, and they’ll provide an early boost of Renown in every region.
For Altars of Lilith, this includes all of their bonus stats. However, for Map Exploration, you will still need to get all of the Waypoints not located in Major towns.
The boost of Renown that comes with this will guarantee you unlock 5 out of the 10 Skill Points from your Renown. By simply completing Strongholds, you’ll have enough for the other half of these.
You won’t have those juicy Paragons points quite as quickly for your fresh level 50, but clearing all the different dungeons as you level will end up putting you not too far off, requiring only a handful of sidequests be done, most of which drag you to dungeons anyways.
With Dungeons being confirmed to reset with the new season, this also means that Codex of Power will not carry over.
Almost all Inventory items are likely to not carry over. This includes Gold, Materials, Inventory, Stash. Though these items will likely get carried over to the Eternal Realm as your Seasonal Characters become Eternal Characters.
Finally, there’s Cosmetics. All Cosmetics, purchased or otherwise, will carry over; as confirmed during the July 6th Developer Stream.
How to Prepare for Next Season
Diablo 4’s Fourth Season is Currently Ongoing and is scheduled to end on August 6th, 2024.
Based on what we know carries over, here are the main goals you should look to complete with your First Character (Seasonal or otherwise). Consider this a checklist of sorts, but we’ll explain why afterward.
- Complete the Mount Quest
- Complete the Campaign
- Max out your Renown
- Reveal your Sanctuary Map
- Collect All Altars of Lilith
- Plan a New Character
What will this do for you exactly? Well, for starters, you won’t have to walk to each area to reveal it, nor have to do it on foot. Plus, as mentioned previously, you’ll retain the ability to skip the campaign after completing it once with any character.
Maxing out your Renown is a great thing to do at least once. Not only will you have your full map revealed, but you get a ton of extra power to start the season with. Between the stats given by Altars of Lilith, the Skill Points from Renown, and the Paragaon points for both the Altars and Renown, this is a significant headstart for new character.
Being smart about how you tackle the Sidequests and Dungeons is always a good thing. Many Side Quests are short, or take you into dungeons. This will help you reach maximum Renown quickly so you never have to think about it again.
As an extension of preparing for a season, you can also go beyond the Renown collection and plan out a character. Whether this means you’re looking at a new build for your favorite class based around a new Unique or Aspect, or trying a new class entirely is up to you.
Having a plan ahead of time lets you focus on playing and enjoying the game instead of wasting your playtime thinking about what build to try. If you’re not up for trying to put together your own build, we’ve posted and will continue to post plenty of build guides for each, letting you get an idea of how a class or build plays to see if it’d fit you.
Seasons Details
In this segment, you will find a brief overview of each Season and a link to its dedicated article showing what is new and different, starting date and the rewards to expect.
Season 1: Season of the Malignant
Season 1 introduced Malignant Hearts, special gems that could only be socketed in jewelry that granted unique powers to each class. These were collected from Malignant Elites, special empowered Elites that spawn in place of other Elites, by performing a ritual to capture their Malignant Hearts.
Some of these Malignant Heart effects still exist today as a set of Unique Rings, one for each class. While you cannot swap the power out as you could during the season, they generally provided the favorite effect of each class.
The Season of the Malignant was announced on July 6, 2023, as part of the July Developer Stream which focused on Season 1 in detail. The Season began on July 20, 2023 and ended on October 17, 2023 with the start of Season 2.
Season 2: Season of Blood
Season 2 introduced Vampiric Powers, which required Vampiric Pacts to be placed on your Armor. These effects had a special UI that let you equip up to 5 of them at a time, given you had the right arrangement of Pacts to allow for it.
Much like the Malignant Hearts of Season 1, many of these Vampiric Power still exist today, though these exist as Aspects rather than Uniques. Many of the fan favorites Aspects like Hectic, Metamorphosis, and Moonrise originate from Season 2.
This Season also came with Blood Harvests, a more vampire-focused version of Helltides. As of Season 4, many of the unique features from these alternative Helltides are now available in current Helltides.
The Season of Blood was announced August 23, 2023, during Gamescom 2023. It also got a Developer Stream on October 4, 2023, followed by a Campfire Chat the following week to share more details on the season. Season 2 began on October 17, 2023, and ended January 23, 2024.
Season 3: Season of the Construct
Season 3 introduced both the Seneschal Companion and Vaults. The story had you diving into the vault to upgrade your companion and you work to free The Loom, a large Horadric structure, from the possession of a demon.
Seneschal Companions are small constructs that follow you and help you in battle. They could be modified with different abilities with everything from damage to healing.
Vaults were mini-dungeons, filled with traps you needed to navigate around. Using Warding Pearls, you could get bonus rewards at the end of the vault if you neve lost the effects through the Vault by avoiding trap damage.
Nothing of Season 3 has carried over into the main game just yet, but this section will change if it does occur.
The Season of the Construct was announced on January 16, 2024. It officially began on January 23, 2024, and ended on May 14, 2024. This season was extended to allow time for the Season 4 PTR to conclude and for them to act on feedback.
Season 4: Season of Loot Reborn
Season 4 brought with it a massive overhaul to Itemization. With Simpler Affixes and new Crafting methods, creating a build from nothing is much easier than in past seasons.
Helltides got a nice overhaul too, bringing in a lot of the fun features of Season 2’s Blood Harvests. This includes Whispers, mini-events, and even the Threat Meter that ramps up enemy density and aggression.
Season 4 had a small storyline about the Iron Wolves fighting back against the Helltide. While the the story is unique the the season, the Iron Wolves are a permanent addition to Helltides.
The Season of Loot Reborn was first shown during a Developer Stream on March 20, 2024, with a Season 4 PTR following just weeks later on April 2, 2024. This also got another Post-PTR Developer Stream prior to launching. This season officially began on May 14, 2024, and ended on August 6, 2024.
Season 5: Season of Infernal Hordes
Season 5 brought us the Infernal Hordes Mode, a Wave-based Horde mode with many rewards. It quickly became one of the fastest leveling methods, as well as besting The Pit for Masterworking materials.
This season also massively buffed all Unique and Mythic Unique Items, making them all very competitive options for their respective builds.
Season 5 was first shown off during a Developer Stream on June 22, 2024. This was followed by the Season 5 PTR less than a week later, which didn’t include the Unique changes. This was then followed up by a final Campfire Chat prior to the season launch, which gave us a look at the updated Uniques and full patch notes.
