Summary
Diablo 4’s eighth season has been released, and the reception is, unsurprisingly, not very positive. It feels as if the vocal part of the Diablo 4 community is never pleased, but season eight’s monetisation changes are particularly galling to players.
Diablo 4’s battle pass system has been replaced by reliquaries, a new system where players choose what they’re working towards. If you play another Activision-Blizzard live-service behemoth, Call of Duty, you’ll recognise Diablo 4’s new system, which is a lot like the battle pass system in Call of Duty.
Battle Passes, Monetisation & Belial
A criticism of this new system is that it isn’t as cost-effective as the old one, giving less premium currency (platinum) than battle passes used to give. In an interview withIGN, lead live game designer Colin Finer responded to the controversy, saying the (lower amount) of platinum is available to everyone now, so it’s a “net win.”
“I think it’s definitely a fair reaction,” Finer says about the negative feedback to reliquaries. “We’re always listening. I think the thing that we think works a lot better as part of the system is, again, you’re able to really work towards and pick the things you want out of the system. I believe also the Platinum that you gain out of the entire system is available to everyone now. So you don’t even need to buy the battle pass necessarily to gain some of those things back. So it’s a net win for everybody overall, in that sense.”
Although the ability to choose what you’re working towards is generally a good thing, the overall rewards being lower is going to irk grinders who are going to grind the entire battle pass or reliquary anyway.
In addition to criticism of monetisation, players have also expressed disappointment about the lack of content in successive seasons. “The season mechanic is just a legion event that’s slightly buffed and is repetitive as f**k. You basically go from one timed event to another, and each of them lasts about ten minutes with a five-minute buffer in between,” writes Nice-Brief9261 in apostcriticising the new season.
“It’s not only that it’s a bad season, it’s just boring as well. I stopped at level 48 and am going back to Last Epoch for the time being. I don’t know if this season is salvageable,” concursSnooLentils6995.
Season 8 is themed around the return of Belial and is now live in Diablo 4.
