Blizzard confirms what happens to Diablo 4 hardcore difficulty characters that die when participating in PvP. Following the reveal that Diablo 4 has finally gone gold, Blizzard has been a bit more open with what fans can expect at launch. Part of that is what the studio has both learned and updated from the most recent beta test weekends including balance changes to each of the classes. One of the bigger tweaks made is to dungeons, which has no minimized backtracking and increased the chance of unique events taking place. Post game has also been a hot topic, as fans wonder how the game intends to keep players around after the credits roll. Thankfully, it appears that Blizzard has also considered Diablo 4's post-game content by announcing various features like World events, Capstone Dungeons, seasons, and much more. For those who want an added challenge, the hardcore difficulty mode is also making a return, though it has generated a few additional questions as how it works with other Diablo 4 activities like PvP. Over on Twitter, Blizzard's Global Community Development Director responded to a fan asking what happens should a hardcore character die while participating in a Diablo 4 PvP activity. Adam Fletcher responded and wasted little time in confirming that hardcore rules will continue to apply and permadeath will remain active. For those who may not be aware, when a character dies in hardcore difficulty, they are gone forever and cannot restart at a checkpoint. Players will need to start over with a new character from scratch.
The admission seems to have surprised many Diablo 4 fans, especially those who assumed there would be dedicated and safe haven style PvP zones. However, there are more than a few who appear to be inspired by the challenge, especially those going for the 10 PvP wins in Hardcore mode achievement. Others, in the accompanying Reddit thread, seemed to agree that the tense nature and raised stakes could make for some exciting streaming content.
Thankfully, fans can get a taste of hardcore mode again in May as Blizzard announced a third and final Diablo 4 beta test. Known as the Server Slam, the beta will be open on all platform as Blizzard is aiming to use this third beta as a way to stress test the servers prior to the game's June launch. It'll have all of the beta content, though players will only be able to level to 20 instead of 25 this time around. As expected, characters will not transfer over to the retail version, so players will want to plan accordingly.
Diablo 4 will release for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on June 6.
