BlizzCon is coming back in-person next week at the Anaheim Convention Center after the COVID years, and Diablo IV will certainly be one of its main attractions.
Just last month, Blizzard’s franchise manager Rod Fergusson confirmed the game would get annual expansions. As such, fans will undoubtedly expect an expansion announcement at the convention, and the first leaks and rumors have already appeared on the Web.
After all, Blizzard uploaded a Technical Alpha build of version 2.0 to its private testing branch. Datamining from that version reportedly reveals the first Diablo IV expansion to be called Lord of Hatred, focusing again on the Prime Evil Mephisto, who was a major character in the base game as well. This isn’t much of a surprise, given the ending of the main story.
The leak also says the Kurast region from Diablo II will be added alongside several new features, including but not limited to:
- A new Spiritborn class with a nature theme
- A Mercenary system that supposedly allows players to hire NPCs, outfit them with gear, and level them up in dedicated skill trees
- The ability to craft corrupt Runestones
- Raids
As realistic as they may sound, these details should be taken with a grain of salt for the time being. Meanwhile, Diablo IV has recently launched on Steam (where it was review-bombed from the get-go) and started its second season, Season of Blood.
Aside from the temporary suspension of the trading feature due to a duplication exploit, the new Diablo IV season appears to have addressed several community concerns by reducing leveling grind and dungeon backtracking while increasing loot drop percentages.
In other Blizzard news, the team had a meet and greet event yesterday with their new owners from Xbox. Several executives like Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Matt Booty were in attendance.
