Diablo VI’s First Season Is Called Season of the Malignant

Blizzard Entertainment announced during their latest developer stream that Diablo IV’s first season is called Season of the Malignant and it’s set to go live on July 20. During the show, they detailed what to expect from the season which is expected to last roughly 12 weeks.

This season’s story will begin right after the main campaign ended as a new corruption is spreading across Sanctuary and the new character is right smack in the middle of all the conflict as he tries to fix the issue but struggles and is now asking the players to help out.

There’s a lot to digest but the main addition of the first season will be the Malignant Heart System, which includes 32 new powers that will allow players to create unique builds that will utilize these new items from any of the five classes available in the game.

These Malignant Hearts are powerful and can be obtained by coming across Malignant creatures found in the world. Once you kill this unique creature, you have to kill it again to drop a caged heart which becomes an item that can be slotted in your jewelry slots. According to developers, these hearts are powerful and will likely spark unique builds in each of the classes.

To farm specific Malignant Hearts (since you can get stronger ones), you can hunt for Malignant monsters through the season’s new activity called Malignant Tunnels, giving players a targeted farming spot to get the most out of the seasonal mechanic. Other additions in the season are new legendary uniques as well as new Legendary Aspects which are thankfully going to be available to Eternal Realm characters.

New Season, New You

As mentioned multiple times since Diablo IV launched, players that want to participate in the game’s seasonal activities will have to create a new seasonal character. The characters you created at launch will not count, so everyone will start at level one in Season of Malignant. There are things carrying over such as the ability to skip the campaign (if you finished the campaign at least once), the map you’ve uncovered so far, and the Lilith Statues that you’ve unlocked. Side quests and other regional activities attached to Renown are reset, so expect to do some Renown farming to get the regional rewards again.

If you are not interested in starting a new character, you can just stick with your Eternal Ream characters and play around with the new Aspects and unique items introduced in season one. There will be six new legendary unique items and seven Aspects once season 1 goes live.

During the developer video, the developers also mentioned that a big patch is coming to Diablo IV before season 1 launches, and it’s considered their biggest yet as they prepare for Season of Malignant and will be available on July 18 in preparation for the launch of the new season.

They also mentioned that once this patch goes live, they highly suggest that all players log in with the character with the most progression as that login will serve as a way to migrate your progress for the new season.

If you want the full developer livestream, you can do so below. All Diablo IV-related news b begins at the 54-minute mark as the stream starts with an update on their free-to-play title Diablo Immortal, as it introduced the new class the Blood Knight, a new class for the series in over a decade.

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