Diablo 4 is kicking off its first round of seasonal content with Season of the Malignant, giving players the chance to start fresh on a seasonal server where they'll engage in a variety of new content and craft potentially game-breaking builds with powerful new items unique to the season. Seasonal gameplay is a major part of Diablo 4, and those familiar with Diablo 3 or Diablo Immortal's seasons will feel right at home. The season begins on July 20 and will run for around three months.
Narratively, the events of Season of the Malignant take place after the Diablo 4 campaign, though the Diablo team has emphasized that it's largely a self-contained story rather than a direct sequel to the Lilith and Inarius saga. Seasons are intended to be isolated in terms of story, this way future players who weren't around for a given season won't have missed critical story beats related to the campaign. Sanctuary has been infested with a plague of the malignant variety, and players will be tasked with defeating special Malignant enemies and eventually taking on the new super boss, Varshan the Consumed.
Getting Started With Diablo 4 Season 1
In order to get started with Season of the Malignant, players must have first completed the Diablo4 campaign which will then enable them to create a new character in the seasonal realm. It's worth noting that Malignant enemies will still appear in non-seasonal realms once those players have finished the campaign, but they'll need to join the seasonal realm to truly participate. New seasonal characters can encounter the seasonal content as soon as they enter Kyovashad if they choose to skip the campaign.
Players will also be pleased to know that Renown does indeed carry over to seasonal characters, so there's no need to hunt down all those Altars of Lilith again. Additionally, players will immediately have access to their mounts and map discovery progress.
How to Make Progress In Season of the Malignant Battle Pass
Diablo4's Season 1 Battle Pass consists of 90 tiers, and the first 27 are accessible to all players for free while the latter 63 tiers will need to be purchased for $10. Ultimate Edition owners immediately receive the first 20 tiers of rewards and have access to the Premium Battle Pass right off the bat. Diablo4's seasonal progression has seen some improvements over Diablo3 in terms of how players actually progress.
Similarly to Diablo3, players will have a set of gameplay objectives like "Complete any dungeon" or "Collect a Malignant Heart," but they won't need to complete the entire list to move on to the next chapter and can choose which objectives they prefer to tackle. Once a chapter is complete, players will earn various rewards like Legendary Aspects or currency. Each completed objective also rewards Favor, which is essentially the "seasonal XP" that moves players up their Battle Pass. Favor can also be earned through normal gameplay such as completing quests or simply killing monsters.
Malignant Heart Gems
Players will encounter Partly Corrupted enemies throughout the world who drop Malignant Hearts, and these can be captured with the Cage of Binding item acquired from the season's quest. Upon using the Cage of Binding on a Malignant Heart, the Partly Corrupted enemy will transform into a powerful Fully Corrupted enemy. Once the Fully Corrupted enemy has been defeated, they'll drop a special Malignant Heart that can be placed in Infested jewelry sockets. Malignant Hearts come in four different categories such as Devious or Brutal, and players can tell which kind of Malignant Heart an enemy will drop based on the Affixes of the Corrupted enemy. This removes some of the guesswork for players farming a specific Malignant Heart.
These gems are exceptionally powerful, and Blizzard has stated that players will be able to put together some potentially game-breaking builds by using them creatively. One example was a Malignant Heart that would store all damage dealt to an enemy for 2.5 seconds before exploding and hitting nearby enemies with the built-up damage. Over the course of the season, the creatures and subsequently the hearts they drop will grow more powerful, encouraging continued participation in the content. In addition to the new Malignant Heart gems, six new Unique Items and seven Legendary Aspects will be arriving with the season.
Malignant Tunnel Dungeons
Season of the Malignant also features a new set of dungeons for Diablo4 known as Malignant Tunnels. These are intended to be shorter dungeons than usual and are somewhere between a standard dungeon and a cellar in length. These are particularly good locations for farming Malignant Hearts, and they aren't affected by the Nightmare system. They also aren't simple reskins of existing dungeons, so players won't end up revisiting the exact same locations as before. It's within these tunnels that players can encounter Varshan the Consumed, the season's primary boss. Few details have been revealed ahead of the season's release, but it is known that Varshan will become increasingly more powerful as the season progresses.
Diablo 4 is now available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
