The Diablo 4 season 5 The PTR is imminent, and while the next Blizzard RPG season may be a little shorter than usual due to the release of the Vessel of Hatred DLC, it’s already shaping up to be one of the biggest improvements yet. A special Diablo 4 Campfire Chat showcases the big changes in Season 5 that we can expect to test out when the PTR launches in just a few days, and includes a huge number of new legendary and unique items for your ultimate builds along with some very welcome quality-upgrades to life.
While the Loot Reborn overhaul introduced with Diablo 4 Season 4 certainly gave the game the breath of life it needed, it felt light on other new additions, with the exception of its endgame The Pit. However, Season 5 looks set to remedy that, offering one of the biggest drops in content Blizzard’s RPG has seen to date, and ensuring we’ll have plenty to keep us busy until Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred release date arrive in October.
The new season finally takes us back to Hell for the first time since the end of the main story. Leading the pack is a new quest line set after the events of Diablo 4’s campaign that will be available in both seasonal and eternal realms. Completing this gives you access to a new endgame, The Infernal Hordes – and don’t worry, you’ll only need to beat it once to unlock the new mode across your account permanently.
The Infernal Hordes is a new wave-based survival mode that takes cues from the best roguelike games. You’ll face endless, increasingly challenging hordes, with the option to choose from three “Infernal Deals” between waves. Each of these will give you a powerful benefit but also a dangerous curse, increasing the risk/reward potential as you progress. Survive long enough and you’ll face the Fell Council, a callback to Diablo 2 – defeat them and you’ll gain access to the precious loot from Hell.
As for the rewards on offer, Season 5 is full of them. All told, community manager Adam Fletcher says there are more than 50 new legendary and unique items – an absolutely massive collection that should really freshen up the loot stash. This includes some really welcome mobility and utility options, even giving Necromancers new ways to get around faster. In addition to this, each of the Diablo 4 classes can now use a wider range of weapon types.
There are also a whole bunch of balance tweaks and changes to look forward to, as you might expect. This should make the update a real testing ground for new contenders for the best Diablo 4 builds, which is great news for anyone worried that we might have been working incrementally until the DLC arrives.
However, this is not the end; Blizzard also has a large list of map quality of life updates. Endgame bosses can be fought multiple times without resetting dungeons, while Beast in Ice now acts as a standard dungeon, and summoning Varshan only requires Malignant Hearts rather than the full collection of body parts, making them much more quick to farm.
Whisper Rewards have been rebalanced during Helltides to make it much faster to farm your Grim Favors. You’ll also now be able to get uniques and mythic uniques (Blizzard’s new name for uber uniques like the Shako helmet) from Whisper Caches, the Purveyor of Curiosities, and Helltide Tortured Gifts, meaning you’ll have a much better chance of finding those ultras -rare items at the end of the game.
Finally, some very nice accessibility options have been introduced. The ‘auto-pin new quests’ option will place a map pin on your current destination as soon as you activate a quest, saving you from manual placement, while the optional on-screen compass and audio navigation aid will make it simpler than ever to get where you need to go to be.
The Diablo 4 Season 5 PTR runs from Tuesday, June 25th to Tuesday, July 2nd. It will be available to all players with a Battlenet account on PC. It will require a separate download to access, though Fletcher notes that if you still have the Season 4 PTR client installed, it will update right into the Season 5 PTR when it launches.
Fletcher also confirmed during the live stream that, as expected, Season 5 will be slightly shorter than other Diablo 4 seasons due to the release of the Vessel of Hatred DLC. Season 6, he explains, will begin alongside the expansion, meaning everyone will start over together when the Vessel of Hatred arrives. Regardless, despite its shorter duration, it sounds like one of the most exciting updates yet.
Can’t wait until then? Here are the best Diablo games for PC to satisfy all your loot cravings. Or if you want to branch out a little more, we’ve picked the best free PC games to give you plenty of options that won’t cost you anything to try.
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