Good news for Diablo 4 players who picked up Vessel of Hatred: Future seasons will feature content exclusive to players who own the expansion, Diablo franchise head Rod Fergusson said in an interview with Polygon earlier this month. The goal, Fergusson said, is for add-on owners to continue to feel they are benefiting from their purchase beyond the current season.
Usually every season Diablo 4 is self-contained, so players can enjoy starting up-to-date characters (the game’s Seasonal Land requires starting over) and enjoying up-to-date seasonal content. Occasionally, season content and features are made available in the game’s Eternal Realm, where non-seasonal characters and characters from previous seasons live.
Fergusson, CEO of the Diablo brand, explained that Blizzard launched Season 6 with it Vessel of Hatred so that players could start over with the up-to-date Spiritborn class from the expansion, but they were concerned that the expansion might feel too much like a “single moment in time” and that future seasons might drag on.
“Since we know that the start of the season is a new starting point, we wanted to launch the expansion at the same time as the start of the season,” Fergusson said. “That’s why we launched at the beginning of Season 6, so you can choose Spiritborn as your new thing. So you might get the impression that this expansion is just a single moment in time, and I just wanted to emphasize that it’s not. We will continue to develop features that will essentially be exclusive to Vessel of Hate owners.”
Fergusson mentioned what Blizzard is thinking about Diablo 4 as divided into “chapters”, which are portions of seasons between major expansion releases. Season 1 to Vessel of Hate was “chapter one”. Diablo 4”, he said, and “season 7 into the future” is chapter two – “future” is probably the second expansion for the game.
Fergusson didn’t mention what these exclusive seasonal features might look like. Vessel of Hatred features plenty of content ready to be modified and expanded, including customizable mercenary companions, up-to-date build customization options with Runewords, and up-to-date dungeon play styles in Kurast Undercity and Dark Citadel.
Blizzard continues its promotional campaign Diablo 4 for the rest of November. Basic game i Vessel of Hate are currently on sale on Battle.net and Xbox, with select items available starting Tuesday, November 19 free trial and character upgrade options Go live to tempt up-to-date and returning players to dive in.
From this date, players can select one character in the Eternal Realm to advance to level 50 using the Welcome Back Booster. A powered-up character can choose from three pre-built builds for this class, each containing a full set of legendary equipment. All Lilith Altars (stat-boosting collectibles) will be unlocked, and some currency and other useful items will be thrown in as well. Vessel of Hatred owners can select two characters to upgrade them to level 50.
From November 19 to December 2, players who have not purchased Vessel of Hate however, you can try the Spiritborn class for free up to level 25. During the same period, there will be a free trial of the base game, also circumscribed to level 25.
Fergusson said the motivation for introducing the booster and free trials was to show off the many changes and improvements Diablo 4 in the first 18 months, including the game-changing Season 4 item update, Loot Reborn, and the character development changes that came with it Vessel of Hatred.
