The launch of Diablo 4 Season 10 is almost upon us. Ahead of the new season’s start on September 23, Blizzard hosted a Developer Update livestream, and delivered a packed show all about the upcoming season.
This was really mainly a recap of the season’s 2.4.0. PTR, while giving players unfamiliar with the goings-on a more consolidated way to catch up on everything new coming with Season 10.
Season 10, of course, is Season of Infernal Chaos. It’s the last thing on the Diablo 4 roadmap, published in April. We’ve obviously known the name for a while, but much of what’s coming with the new season itself follows the template set by past ones.
There are new abilities to earn – this time called Chaos Perks, as well as new activities that feed into the grind of earning the new rewards. There’s also a refresh of several endgame activities, most notably Infernal Hordes, which incidentally also affects the Eternal Realm.
Perhaps the most interesting addition is Chaos Armor, a new Unique armor type – available only during the season. Even there, it’s not as exciting as it could’ve been, as the main point is to shuffle the powers of Uniques to slots they don’t currently support.
For example, a powerful Unique piece of chest armor can now appear as gloves, at higher power and with at least one Greater Affix. While you won’t be able to have the same Unique equipped at the same tim (both Chaos and standard), having a named Unique drop in a slot that’s different from the one it was initially designed for frees you up to equip something else (perhaps another Unique) in that original slot.
What you’re basically getting out of the new system is the potential for wild combinations that would’ve previously been impossible to create.
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If you’re expecting more major changes to systems like Tempering and Masterworking, you’ll have to wait until Season 11, the PTR of which is expected to take place before the end of the year.
Any other itemisation issues you may have with Diablo 4 will remain unresolved for now, and we have no idea when Blizzard plans to make core changes there. The same goes for the much maligned Reliquary battle pass system, which will remain unchanged in Season 10, too.
If you curious about the specifics, Blizzard published the full set of patch notes for 2.4.0 on the official blog, which you can read at the link.