Diablo IV Season 9 will introduce plenty of new content, including new activities, powers, and the return of Astaroth as an endgame fight.
As revealed during yesterday's Campfire Chat with members of the development team, Season 9, Sins of the Horadrim, will introduce a new endgame activity called Escalating Nightmares, a series of three Nightmare Dungeons where each dungeon's affixes stack with the next one. Awaiting the end of the third dungeon is an Exalted version of Astaroth that will surely provide an excellent challenge. To take part in the Escalating Nightmares activity, players will need to use Escalation Sigils, which can only be found inside Horadic caches found in Horadric Strongrooms, small dungeons found in Nightmare Dungeons. Another reward available for completing Horadric Strongrooms is Horadric Attunement, which can be exchanged for rewards. Every Horadric Strongroom allows players to choose between different challenges, providing a decent level of variety.
Diablo IV Season 9 will also feature the introduction of Horadric Spellcraft. This system allows users to create spells by combining three elements - Catalysts, Infusions, and Arcana. The first will determine the base, unmodified power, while the second and the third change the elemental property and enhance the base power of the spell. This system feels like a new variant of systems seen in previous seasons, so those who have been playing the game for a while and have engaged with its seasonal content shouldn't have too many problems getting to grips with it.
Beyond the new content coming with Season 9, the Diablo IV developers also outlined some of the changes coming to dungeons of both the Seasonal and Eternal Realms variety. In the new season, players can activate Nightmare Sigils from inside Nightmare Dungeons once complete, allowing them to go through a completed dungeon without having to exit it first. Nightmer Dungeons affixes are also getting expanded, and the new affixes will be available in both Seasonal and Eternal Realms Dungeons. All the new content and the changes outlined above will become available for testing next week on May 27th, when the 2.3.0 PTR patch goes live.
Diablo IV is now available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S worldwide.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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