Diablo 4 is getting a “Welcome Back” booster for all players in the near future, one that will automatically level a chosen character to 50, let players choose between three different builds per class, and equip them with a new set of gear. It will also automatically unlock all of the Altars of Lilith for those who hadn’t yet scoured the game’s world to collect them all.
Blizzard announced the news as part of its most recent Diablo 4 Campfire Chat, where it covered balance changes coming as part of the mid-Season 6 update and answered fan questions.
The boost will only be for characters on the game’s Eternal (non-seasonal) realms, and is being done in part because of how the game’s Season 4 Loot Reborn update and its more recent Vessel of Hatred update dramatically rebuilt the game in terms of loot, difficulty, leveling, and progression. Those updates in the process broke gear and builds for those who hadn’t played in a while. Those who own the base game will receive one free character boost, while those who own the Vessel of Hatred expansion will receive two.
“A lot of players with Season 6 jumping back in, a lot of the gear went to ‘Legacy’ gear and this kind of gives them a way of being able to recover some of that and immediately get back into it,” Diablo community manager Adam Fletcher said during the livestream.
Leveling to 50 and getting a new set of gear doesn’t take too long in the current form of Diablo 4, but for those who have been putting off collecting all the Altars of Lilith since launch, the boost is a big win. When Diablo 4 first released, players spent hours finding each one (160 total) to gain all the Renown and, more importantly, small stat boosts each altar granted. Blizzard shortly after launch made finding Altars of Lilith account-wide, so players only ever needed to find them all once.
There will additionally be a free trial coming in the near future, one that will include the ability to take the expansion’s new Spiritborn class for a spin. Blizzard said more details about the boost and free trial will be coming in an official blog later in the week.
Speaking of the Spiritborn, Blizzard confirmed during the livestream that the class is more than a little overpowered and overplayed at the moment (over 60% of players are playing the new class), but that it won’t be nerfing it until Season 7 in January. In the meantime, Blizzard is buffing the game’s original five classes in various ways to make up the difference.
In GameSpot’s Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred review, we called the first expansion for Blizzard’s hit-ARPG “a great entry point for lapsed Diablo 4 players” that delivers on making the entire experience “feel fresh again.”
