Unknowingly, Diablo 4 has accompanied you for two years through 8 seasons. Although it has not always performed well, at least it has brought you a good Sanctuary adventure time. Now the second anniversary will come with Season 9.
Diablo 4 officially launched on June 5, 2023, and the currently confirmed release time of Season 9 is July 1 this year (PTR will end on June 3). Therefore, the two-year anniversary celebration event should actually be held at the end of Season 8.
But to be honest, as the opening work of the third year, even if the ninth season cannot participate in the two-year anniversary celebration itself, it should launch more innovative gameplay besides the content shown in the PTR before the official launch to show that the game itself still has development potential.
Based on this, we will introduce you to the events that may be held on the second anniversary, and what additional content we hope Season 9 can bring.
Known 2nd Anniversary Celebration Content
In June 2024, to commemorate the first anniversary of the game, from June 6 to June 20, Diablo 4 brought a series of celebration events including Treasure Goblin, Mother’s Blessing and more. You can get free cosmetic props and Diablo 4 gold and XP bonus opportunities by playing these content.
Although the celebration method this year has not been fully announced and may change, one thing remains unchanged, that is, everything should be based on providing rewards for you! And this year’s reward method is likely to be Reliquary.
It is expected that this celebration event will provide you with a free Reliquary, which may be a combination of a large amount of gold, new cosmetics, new theme rewards, etc. - after all, the anniversary reward cannot be set too single and simple.
What Is Reliquary?
This mechanism is a new form of battle pass launched in Season 8, divided into battle pass Reliquaries and event Reliquaries. The former is related to the daily progress of the game, while the latter is set for special events, such as the upcoming two-year anniversary celebration.
Compared with the previous battle pass, the biggest advantage of Reliquary is that you can decide the priority of obtaining rewards according to your own wishes, rather than in a fixed order. In this way, you can arrange the game progress exploration by yourself.
To be honest, although the mechanism itself is very good, it was complained by players for being too scarce when it was applied in Season 8. It seems that Diablo 4 completely regards it as a profit tool rather than a welfare mechanism.
Based on this, Reliquary provided through the anniversary celebration this time should be the product of the game after learning lessons, so both the quantity and quality of rewards should be better.
What Other Celebration Events Should Be Brought?
Rewards are one aspect, and the way to provide rewards is actually very important! It is fun to get free rewards directly, but it will be more fulfilling to earn rewards through your own efforts. Therefore, in addition to Reliquary, adding new tasks and gameplay should also be good.
To this end, the game can learn from last year’s practice and re-launch the classic Diablo 4 event Treasure Goblin, and get corresponding rewards by hunting these special creatures. In fact, this event was also held in March this year, and the response was still good.
In the past two seasons, Diablo 4 has been considered lacking innovation. Even the highly anticipated Berserk cooperation event was ultimately just another inducement to consumption. Therefore, the game can completely utilize this celebration to combine rewards with new gameplay to change its reputation.
How Should Season 9 Perform?
Although the two-year anniversary celebration should end before the launch of the season, it would be a bit ridiculous if the celebration performed better than the new season.
According to 2.3.0 PTR, the known highlights of Season 9 include the new boss Astaroth, the new power Horadric Spells (and a series of related mechanisms), as well as the update of the nightmare dungeon and the addition of Horadric Strongrooms dungeon.
Among them, the new Escalating Nightmares, as a new endgame dungeon, is actually a chain dungeon consisting of three nightmare dungeons. Each individual dungeon has stackable affixes, and the difficulty of the dungeon will increase as you explore deeper.
New Skill Effects Worth Keeping
Season 9 seasonal power Horadric Spells actually allow you to combine Catalysts, Infusions, and Arcana, three abilities that each have multiple types of power, to craft the combat power that best suits you.
No matter what specific power is utilized, the ultimate goal is to kill or weaken the enemy, but in 2.3.0 PTR, you will find that if you utilize Propulsion as a Catalyst, the large-scale explosion effect it produces can be combined with Floaty Bobble Arcana to form a special teleportation effect in the arena.
On this basis, if you further combine it with Bloody Charm Arcana, you can also kill enemies with less than 20% health in the explosion and reset the skill. In other words, as long as there are enemies nearby that will be killed by the explosion, you can achieve permanent teleportation in this way!
In order to accumulate key resources such as gold and XP, you need to actively farm various dungeons after the start of Season 9, and the teleportation effect provided by this series of Horadric Spells will greatly improve your combat efficiency because your speed and accuracy have been improved.
Although Diablo 4 is always used to cancel or weaken such accidental events in the PTR in the official season, this function is completely worth retaining. Because it does not destroy the game balance too much, and also provides game fun for players.
In short, whether it is a new season or a new celebration, it is worth looking forward to. Fortunately, they are not far away!
