Diablo IV's Season of Hell's Legacy Celebrates 30 Years of Diablo With Prime Evil Battles

Blizzard has revealed Season of Hell's Legacy, the anniversary season for Diablo IV that puts you face to face with the Prime Evils themselves. According to the official Diablo IV blog, this is the centerpiece of the series' 30th Anniversary celebration, and it wants you to slay demons, hunt secrets, and bear the remnants of the Prime Evils across a living history of Diablo's past.

If you have been following the anniversary celebration, this slots right in alongside everything else Blizzard has been showing off - and you can catch up on the wider reveals in our BlizzCon opening ceremony live blog.

What is the Season of Hell's Legacy questline about?

The seasonal story brings back a familiar face. Amid the dead rising from Pandemonium, the lost soul of the legendary Horadrim Deckard Cain returns with dire news: three dark wanderers have returned, each leaving a trail of death in their wake. Your job is to confront them, delve into the nightmares of their horrific past, and defeat the Prime Evils that torment them to lay their souls to rest.

Completing the seasonal questline has you collect three Splinters of Evil by defeating echoes of Diablo beneath Tristram Cathedral, Baal at Arreat Summit, and Mephisto within the Durance of Hate. From there you choose which Prime Evil's power to bear, build reputation through the activities tied to that Splinter, and unlock modifiers and upgrades through War Plans. When you want to switch things up, you head back to the largest Waking Nightmares to change the Splinter you wield.

Bearing a Splinter of Evil turns you into a dark wanderer yourself. An Iconic Power tied to that Prime Evil periodically erupts from you in combat - Fire damage for Diablo, Cold damage for Baal, or Physical damage for Mephisto - but the Splinter also makes you more vulnerable to its associated Prime Evil. As Blizzard warns, what you hunt will stalk you in return.

How do the Prime Evil reputation tracks work?

Each reputation track comes with eight activity modifiers and six upgrades to its Iconic Power. Here is how each Splinter reshapes your endgame:

• Diablo's Splinter of Terror modifies Helltide and Infernal Hordes

• Baal's Splinter of Destruction modifies The Undercity and Lair Bosses

• Mephisto's Splinter of Hatred modifies The Pit and Nightmare Dungeons

• All three modify the Tree of Whispers

You can only bear one Prime Evil Soul Splinter at a time, but switching is possible - grab another Splinter from the largest Waking Nightmares to change your reputation track and rewards.

What are Waking Nightmares?

Waking Nightmares are three types of encounters that recreate memories and nightmares from key events in Diablo's past. Veteran players will recognize the settings, but they have been rebuilt with updated visuals and encounters designed for Diablo IV. The three flavors break down like this:

• The largest Waking Nightmares are multi-level, Capstone-type dungeons that recreate historic showdowns with the Prime Evils. You first meet them in the seasonal questline and can replay them for rewards on Torment levels. Like all Capstones they have a fixed difficulty, and they also appear as pinnacle Capstones at Torment 10+ for greater risks and bigger loot.

• Standard-length dungeons that recreate familiar moments such as the Den of Evil from Diablo II. These have fixed locations across the world, just like normal dungeons.

• The smallest Waking Nightmares appear suddenly in the open world for a one-room encounter with a past boss like the giant spider Queen Araneae, or waves of memorable monsters such as dagger-wielding Flayers.

What are Soul Splinters?

Soul Splinters are special gems for the Season of Hell's Legacy, each tied to a powerful demon or artifact. Being demonic in origin, they offer a powerful boon but also carry a liability, and you can equip up to three of them among available Jewelry slots. The lineup is:

• Splinter of Anguish (Andariel)

• Splinter of Sin (Azmodan)

• Splinter of Lies (Belial)

• Splinter of the Black Soulstone

• Splinter of Pain (Duriel)

• Splinter of the Mother (Lilith)

• Splinter of Hellfire (Na-Krul)

• Splinter of Damnation (Skarn)

Splinters drop as Magic, Rare, Legendary, or Unique, and you can use Amalgamation in the Horadric Cube to upgrade Soul Splinters of the same type and rarity to the next highest rarity.

What is changing in the endgame?

The big quality-of-life win here is shared War Plans. Ever since War Plans arrived in Lord of Hatred, players have been asking for a way to share earned reputation points across their characters. Starting in Season of Hell's Legacy, points you earn for one character are shared across alts on your account that sit in the same partitions within these categories:

• Eternal / Seasonal

• Non-Hardcore / Hardcore

• Normal / Solo-Self Found

As long as two characters match states across all three partitions, they share War Plans progress - so a Seasonal Non-Hardcore Non-SSF character shares with another Seasonal Non-Hardcore Non-SSF character, but not with a Seasonal Non-Hardcore SSF one. Each character still gets separate planners to allocate points, similar to how shared skill or Paragon points work, so you can chase different goals while sharing reputation levels and progress.

There are some important carryover rules to know as the season changes on September 15. War Plans progress from Season 14 characters will carry over to Eternal, with all accumulated reputation points on characters within the same partition adding together into your Eternal progress.

Hardcore players need to read the fine print: only the War Plans progress of living characters at the end of Season 14 can transfer. Season 14 Hardcore characters who die before the Season 15 changeover cannot transfer their points. Starting in Season 15, if you want a dead Hardcore character's War Plans progress to carry over to Eternal at the end of the season, you must have one other living Hardcore character in that same partition make the seasonal jump - it can even be a level 1 "storage" character, which will safely deposit the accumulated points into your Eternal Hardcore War Plans progress.

What about Mythic Unique crafting?

The methods to create Mythic Uniques stay the same, but the outcomes are now far more deterministic. There are three ways to craft them:

• Horadric Cube: Upgrade Direct Item to Mythic

• Jeweler: Rune Crafting > Mythic Uniques

• Blacksmith: Forge > Mythic Cache

Upgrading a Direct Item to Mythic in the Horadric Cube will be more expensive than the recipes through the Blacksmith or Jeweler.