Diablo IV’s first holiday event, Midwinter Blight, will see players decorating Kyovashad’s town square for the holidays starting December 12, all while fighting back against the minions of the Red-Cloaked Horror.
Announced during the Diablo IV segment of BlizzCon 2023’s opening ceremony, Blizzard has now shared more details about what exactly the event will encompass. For starters, the event is, strangely, only for seasonal characters. Assuming players have one, they can visit Gileon the bard in Kyovashad to kick off the winter festivities. He’ll task adventurers with journeying out into the frigid cold of Fractured Peaks to collect Blighted Fragments from monsters called Blightfiends and destroy “gory jumbles of human viscera,” according to Blizzard, in order to recover lost heirlooms.
Blightfiends, as it turns out, like to celebrate the winter holidays a little differently, and players will need to battle the beasts and disrupt their festivities. Doing so will summon their overlord, the Red-Cloaked Horror, a goatman robed in red that instantly brings to mind Krampus, Saint Nicholas’ antagonistic doppelganger from European folklore. Defeating the Red-Cloaked Horror will unlock a special title.
It wouldn’t be a seasonal event without some special rewards, and Blizzard has players covered there. Turning in Blighted Fragments, Lost Heirlooms, and other resources will let players claim various cosmetic prizes, like class-specific back trophies, a mount trophy, and even a new Legendary aspect, Shard of the Dawn, which will make players more efficient at mowing down Blightfiends for the duration of the event. A new potion called Gileon’s Brew will additionally be up for grabs, one that increases maximum life, increases lucky hit chance, and increases XP gains by 15%.
Diablo IV’s Midwinter Blight event will run from December 12 to January 2. For max-level seasonal characters, Diablo IV is also currently running its Abbatoir of Zir event. The event has proved so challenging that Blizzard recently called its difficulty “pretty excessive,” leading the developer to nerf it substantially in order to make it a little less punishing.
Blizzard is currently working on Diablo IV’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred. The expansion is slated to arrive in late 2024 and will introduce a new class while taking players back to iconic locations from Diablo II.
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