Diablo 4’s endgame is where many players will spend much of their time, growing and customizing their characters with new skills, abilities, gear, and cosmetics. In a new video released Wednesday, Blizzard outlined the various endgame activities players can expect to busy themselves with, well after they’ve completed the story campaign and (presumably) sent big bad Lilith back to Hell.
In the above video, Diablo 4 game director Joe Shely is joined by Kayleigh Calder, lead game producer; Ash Sweetring, game producer; and Joseph Piepiora, associate game director, in detailing the game’s unlockable World Tiers, Paragon upgrade system, Nightmare Dungeons, PvP, and everything else endgame-related.
Here’s what’s in store:
World Tiers
Upon completing the campaign, players will get access to a special “capstone dungeon,” Piepiora says. Completing that dungeon will unlock the first World Tier, which will in turn unlock a new level of difficulty, but also grant access to powerful new loot and other advantages for your character. If you want Diablo 4 to be much, much harder, this is for you.
Paragon System
Beyond the base skill tree, players can further customize their characters using the Paragon system. The Paragon board will offer “a lot more depth, a lot more customization,” Piepiora says. Calder noted that players can rotate the Paragon board to personalize the overall direction of their endgame upgrades — many of which look like boosts to character stats.
Related to the Paragon system is the Codex of Power, through which players can equip Aspects, which can be earned through dungeons. Through Aspects, players can make items they find in Diablo 4’s world more powerful, turning them into legendary-class items.
Nightmare Dungeons
Players can return to dungeons they’ve already played through and modify them with a Sigil. These Sigils, Sweetring explains, will “alter the play style and intensity of a dungeon.” Nightmare Dungeons are more difficult, have additional objectives, and will feature modifiers called Affixes. Piepiora highlighted one of those Affixes: Hellgate, which will randomly open up portals inside of dungeons that summon monsters not native to the region.
There are “over 120 dungeons to play through and find in Diablo 4,” Piepiora says, and every one of them can become a Nightmare Dungeon.
Endgame Exploration
The overworld of Diablo 4 will also be modified to include targeted activities in areas called Helltides. Monsters become harder, and new environmental effects, like meteors falling from the sky, will pester players as they try to slay the forces of Hell.
There’s also a bounty system centered around a location called the Tree of Whispers, which tasks players with completing bounties in various locations across Sanctuary to earn rewards. These are contained activities that players can do solo or with a group, Blizzard says.
The Fields of Hatred
Parts of the world of Sanctuary are poisoned by Lilith’s presence, and when players visit them, they can engage in player-vs-player combat. Players can earn items called shards in PvP, and redeeming them involves a twist: Shards must be “purified” before they can be redeemed back in town, and other players can try to stop you (and steal your shards) on your return journey. That system brings a bit of extraction shooter flavor to Diablo 4. Purified shards can be turned in at towns to purchase special cosmetic rewards.
Diablo 4 post-launch updates
Blizzard says that launch day is “just the beginning,” with Piepiora saying that Diablo 4 will receive a “living, breathing set of updates” for players to engage with after the game has gone live.
Diablo 4 will launch on June 6 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.