Diablo 4 Season 2 – release date, story and everything else we know
Activision Blizzard has left hardly anything to the imagination when it comes to Diablo 4 Season 2, dishing the details about what players can expect from the vampire-themed content drop.
Diablo 4 Season 2 is the live-service game’s next major shot at redemption. Soon after dazzling players with its new grim-dark aesthetic, in-depth classes and immensely satisfying kill, loot, repeat gameplay loop, Diablo 4 quickly fell out of favour thanks to constant character nerfs and a lack of endgame content. Such issues were only exasperated further on the eve of Diablo 4 Season 1, which failed to solve a lot of these issues.
That’s why Diablo 4 Season 2, officially called Season of Blood, is developer Activision Blizzard’s chance to get people back on board. There’s a lot of information released that would indicate there’s the potential to do exactly that, which we’ve handily gathered up in one article to save you from scrubbing the internet. If you want to find out more about the Diablo 4 Season 2 release date, what platforms it’ll be launching on and what new this second season adds, here’s everything we know for certain.
Diablo 4 Season 2: Release date
The Diablo 4 Season 2 release date is Tuesday, October 17. This was confirmed to be the case back at Geoff Keighley’s Gamescom 2023 Opening Night Live presentation, where we also learned that Diablo 4’s second season would be called Season of Blood and sport a vampiric theme. The Diablo 4 Season 2 release date was also accompanied by an announcement trailer, though at the time not much else was known about what new content the season would bring.
As with Diablo 4’s first season, Season of the Malignant, players can expect Season of Blood to continue for a minimum of three months after the initial Diablo 4 Season 2 release date. Three months is how long Activision Blizzard confirmed seasons to be in a Game Informer cover feature interview – and as relayed by VideoGamer – back before the game launched, so it’ll be very much the same this time around. Expect Season of Blood to finish sometime in January.
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Diablo 4 Season 2: Platforms
Diablo 4 is available to play right now on both last-gen consoles, current-gen consoles and PC. Accessing Diablo 4 Season 2 when it goes live on platforms like PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One is a relatively straightforward process of installing update 1.2.0 when it goes live on Tuesday, October 17. The same is true for PC players using Activision Blizzard’s own in-house client, Battle.net.
However, if you’re a PC player who wants to avoid using Battle.net whenever at all possible, there’s good news. Activision Blizzard recently confirmed in its latest Diablo 4 Season 2 developer update livestream that Diablo 4 will in fact be coming to Steam alongside Season of Blood’s launch, following up with a blog post where it directed people to the Diablo 4 steam page. This means that come launch day there’ll be plenty of Diablo 4 Season 2 platforms to choose from – both on consoles and PC.
Diablo 4 Season 2: Trailers
When it comes to Diablo 4 Season 2 trailers, there’s a handful that Activision Blizzard has released. The first was unveiled in the Gamescom Opening Night Live release date announcement, but mainly consisted of animatics and was without any direct gameplay from the new season. You can view the Season of Blood announcement trailer below:
This Diablo 4 Season 2 trailer was then followed up by a second that works more as a developer diary update, delving more into Gemma Chan’s vampire hunter character, Erys, as well as explaining in detail other new season details relating to the story, gameplay additions and balance changes. You can view the seven-minute-long Dev Insights Diablo 4 Season 2 trailer in full below:
Diablo 4 Season 2: Story
The Diablo 4 Season 2 story focus is actually quite large, placed firmly at the forefront compared to a lot of other live-service games. As already mentioned, the new season centres on a vampiric theme, and with this comes a new arch-nemesis. Described in the Dev Insights Diablo 4 Season 2 trailer as “a new ancient vampire”, Lord Zir replaces Lilith as this season’s new big bad, commanding a cultish army of shadowy vampires that have elected to invade the world of Sanctuary.
It'll be the player’s job to prevent Lord Zir’s forces from kidnapping the local populace by embracing a new set of vampiric powers that sit alongside their regular gamut of Active Abilities. They’ll have help in the form of an elite group of vampire hunters, led by Erys. As one of the few people to contract vampirism but not under the spell of Lord Zir’s curse, players find themselves in the unique position of being able to help in a way few others can.
The Diablo 4 Season 4 story is a lot more developed than what we previously saw in Season of the Malignant. Dare we say that it’s almost expansion-esque, introducing a new questline that includes proper voice acting and seemingly even cutscenes. It’s a lot of handcrafted story content that in theory will only be accessible to Diablo 4 players for three months.
Diablo 4 Season 2: Gameplay
One of the core seasonal mechanics is of course the vampiric powers. This ensures that Diablo 4 Season 2’s gameplay is shaken up greatly when compared to what was available in Diablo 4 Season 1 or even the base game’s campaign because you no longer have access solely to the Active Abilities available with the character class you choose. “We’ve tried to provide powers that enhance every build so that there’s no one right way of playing,” said senior game designer Chris Klepac at the 3:33 mark of the Dev Insights Diablo 4 Season 2 trailer.
There will be 22 Vampiric Powers to acquire overall, able to be used as soon as you gather the necessary number of Pacts to fulfil the Pact requirement. Pacts come in three types – Eternity, Ferocity and Divinity – and can be looted whenever you pick up gear pieces. Other new gameplay additions include five new endgame bosses in World Tiers 3 and 4, new Legion Events tied to Lord Zir’s Blood Harvest and of course a new battle pass – this time with vampiric-themed cosmetics.
As for the general Diablo 4 Season 2 gameplay, not much has changed in terms of how the core game is played. You'll still be creating a new Seasonal character (leaving your pre-existing one in the Eternal realm), hacking and slashing away at enemies in the pursuit of loot from an isometric perspective. However, the new vampiric powers promise to add a new degree of flexibility to each character class's existing skillset.
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