Oops, Diablo 4 accidentally gave Season 5 characters a bunch of extra tempering recipes, but Blizzard is "letting this one slide" for fun

Diablo 4
(Image credit: Blizzard)

Diablo 4 Season 5 is here, giving players bottomless Infernal Hordes to savage and plunder – and also unintentionally giving them some tempering recipes they learned last season, it turns out. 

Tempering, if you need a refresher, is a subsystem of Diablo 4 gear itemization that lets you learn and apply specific affixes. Ordinarily, you'd need to expand your pool of affixes each season by collecting new tempering manuals. That's still technically the case with Season 5, but Diablo community development director Adam Fletcher confirmed in a tweet that "we are aware of the reports that new seasonal characters are having their tempering recipes carried over from their last season's seasonal character. 

"This isn't the original design or intention so I wouldn't expect this for future seasons but we are letting this one slide for Season 5," he added. 

"There are still new tempering recipes to be discovered this season for all classes," Fletcher clarified in a follow-up tweet. 

I'm reminded of an iconic card from the board game Monopoly: Bank Error In Your Favor. This is the best kind of bug right here, even if it is just a one-time thing. Although frankly, Diablo 4 has turned so many well-received experiments into permanent features that, even if Fletcher says we shouldn't expect this for future seasons, I'm not crossing it out in my mind just yet. Whatever the case, take the Ws where you can. Enjoy your tempering jump-start, grinders. 

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Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.