Pour one out for Diablo 3 as Blizzard prepares its final new season
After 11 years, Diablo 3 has reached the closest thing to an ending a Diablo game can get. Its next season, season 29, will mark the last time Blizzard introduces new features and cosmetics to the game. Future seasons will recycle and remix features and rewards from the last nine years as development resources shift over to Diablo 4.
In a group interview with Wowhead, Diablo 4 general manager Rod Fergusson said the next season "won't be as rich as Season 28," which introduced an entire skill tree system to the game.
Diablo 3 seasons challenged you to play the game on a fresh character with unique changes to how the action RPG normally works. Those changes included periodic buffs when attacking enemies, multiplied treasure goblins, and a stacking buff for actively hitting and killing demons.
Diablo 3 players have been at it for a whopping nine years, earning cosmetic rewards and a place on the leaderboards. You'll still be able to do that, but future seasons won't offer anything new.
Diablo games never truly die though. Diablo 2 was remastered and relaunched as Diablo 2: Resurrected and still has plenty of players participating in its own version of seasons, known as ladders. And the Diablo 1 subreddit has some fairly recent posts of players discussing rare items.
Diablo 4 will carry Diablo 3's seasons forward with entirely reworked endgame systems, which were revealed this week. Diablo 4 will have a new paragon system for gradually increasing your stats, nightmare dungeons with harder-core difficulty and rewards, and a bunch of daily quests to complete for a chance at rare loot. All of these will tie into Diablo 4 seasons and seasonal battle pass. It all kicks off sometime after Diablo 4 releases on June 6.