Along with detailing what to expect with Seasons in Diablo 4, Blizzard Entertainment also talked about the Season Pass and Shop. It clarified that none of the items earned from the premium track on the Season Pass or purchased from the in-game Shop confers power advantages.
During the Season Journey, players complete difficult challenges and earn unique cosmetics. Objectives completed in the Season Journey also provide Season Pass progression. The Season Pass is essentially a battle pass with free and premium tracks. The scale of Seasons is “much more ambitious than what we’ve done in the past on Diablo 3, with a large development team dedicated to Seasons after launch. Diablo 4 will be supported by an army of developers for years to come,” says director of product Kegan Clark.
The free track provides gameplay boosts for all players, which helps make leveling a new seasonal character quicker (and they can’t be purchased with real money). The premium track offers only cosmetics, which are in keeping with the season theme, and Premium Currency. Some cosmetics are even exclusive to the Season Pass.
While you can spend money to purchase Season Pass tiers, the boosts require accomplishing level milestones. “In other words, there’s no way to shortcut getting Season Boosts by buying Tiers; they must be earned.”
As for the Shop, it also contains only cosmetics. They’re built on the transmog system, so individual components from paid cosmetics can be mixed and matched with in-game armor. “Nothing offered in the Shop grants a direct or indirect gameplay advantage. So, while many of these may look like powerful pieces of gear, they have no in-game stats.” Clark also notes that core and seasonal gameplay features can be experienced without spending money.
There will also be an in-depth preview system to “closely examine every detail of the cosmetic on their characters before deciding to make a purchase.” And if you’re concerned that the best cosmetics will be locked behind the shop, Diablo 4 will launch with “hundreds of transmogs unlockable from drops in-game, including dozens of armor sets of the highest visual quality.
“There are incredible pieces – Unique and Legendary quality items – for players to find without ever going to the Shop. The Shop offers more diversity of choices, not systematically better choices.” When purchasing armor transmogs from the shop, they’ll be usable on all characters of that class. Many of the Shop’s cosmetics are “class-specific fantasies” and thus “wouldn’t necessarily make sense visually on other classes.” There will be some cosmetics exclusive to the Season Pass that look similar across all classes, though.
Diablo 4 is out in 2023 for Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Xbox One. Stay tuned for more details and gameplay in the coming months.
