Taking down legions of demons is undeniably thrilling, but making it happen just minutes after kicking off your character’s journey seems a bit over the top for a loot-centric action RPG like Diablo 4. The real magic lies in feeling every power leap as you grind and grow, giving you a real reason to hunt for that next piece of gear. Yet, for a lot of fans, the newest season of Diablo 4 misses the mark by being too easy.
Blizzard knows this too well and is setting the stage for season 8 to crank up the difficulty without sucking the joy out of one’s ascension to a demon’s worst nightmare. In a recent stream, the developers shared their roadmap to make leveling from 1 to 60 a richer, more memorable journey, while also intensifying the endgame challenges.
With Diablo 4’s initial expansion, Vessel of Hatred, the game’s pacing was tweaked significantly. However, “a lot of that has sort of gone down the drain in terms of how fast players are chewing through some of the content,” according to design director Colin Finer. This season, players are hitting max level much more swiftly than before. To remedy this, Blizzard plans to stretch out the journey through the first 25 levels, ensuring it remains a vital part of gameplay.
Additionally, Legendary items, which are the cream of the loot crop, will be less common on the trek to level 60. Instead, those lower-tier items—often overlooked—are getting a buff to bridge the gap. Finer explained that the idea is for progression to feel “more rewarding and satisfying as you go through these levels.”
Now, about the endgame—the stage where players beef up their characters and tackle higher Torment difficulties for epic rewards. These challenges are getting a tune-up, too. Blizzard notes that 50% of players reached the peak Torment level in record time this season. “From a philosophy standpoint, we really want whatever the hardest Torment tier is—in this case Torment 4—to be aspirational, and to us, that means around 10%,” Finer said. As a result, the difficulty jump from one Torment level to the next will be more dramatic in the next season.
Bosses in the endgame are also set to get nastier. Rather than serving as mere loot dispensers, they’ve been redesigned to challenge even the most seasoned players. Three new bosses are joining the ranks, and you won’t need to worry about drowning in summoning items anymore. Players can battle these bosses for free, and each victory will reward a chest, requiring a key to unlock—with an added thrill of potentially having the new heavy-hitter boss, Belial, make an unexpected appearance to crash your party.
Blizzard is rolling out these changes for testing to Battle.net PC players next week in the season 8 PTR, which will run from March 11 to March 18. The full release of season 8 is slated for April 29.
