Diablo 4's seasonal stories won't tie into expansions like Vessel of Hatred because "if you miss a season, it's okay"
Blizzard doesn't want players to feel left out if they skipped a season
Diablo 4's seasonal content won't tie into its expansions, so you don't have to worry about catching up on the story before playing the Vessel of Hatred DLC.
GamesRadar+ recently spoke to Diablo 4 quest designer Nathan Scott, who oversees quest production for all seasonal content in the action-RPG. When asked about tying all the post-launch content, like seasons and expansions, together, Scott shot this idea down.
"So far, the philosophy has been to approach each season separately," the quest designer says. "One thing we feel strongly about is, if you miss a season, it's okay. We want you playing and the content that we're producing – I'm biased, but I think it's pretty great."
"But, if you jump in [Season 1], and you miss Season 2, it's not the end of the world; we don't want you to feel like you're missing out on important story chunks," Scott continues. "So it’s unlikely we do any related things later down the line. But that being said, we're always looking at ways to make seasons feel unique and a good experience, so."
In other words, when Diablo 4's Vessel of Hatred expansion launches later on near the end of 2024, you won't need to have played the previous Seasons 1 and 2 in order to know what's going on. Considering seasonal storylines probably won't repeat in Diablo 4, this sounds like a good thing, and particularly appeals to people who don't have 100-odd hours to grind out every few months.
This actually makes perfect sense, considering Diablo 4's seasons will overlap with its expansions. It'd be pretty hard to develop two storylines that relate to one another at the same time, admittedly, so it fits that Scott and company want seasons and expansions to stand on their own.
Diablo 4 Season of the Construct launches later this month on January 23.
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Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.