Diablo 4 Season 5 sets up Vessel of Hatred perfectly

Diablo 4 Season 5 gave a masterclass on how to bring fans back to a game, and they did it by catering to all players in preparation for the first major expansion.

If Diablo 4’s fourth season reinvented the game, Season 5 has continued this momentum by doubling down on what players enjoy: making seasons fun again after they started to get a little stale.

As the Diablo 4 developers told us at Gamescom, though, “There are two types of players” those who play every season and the more casual crowd who just play for the story. For Diablo 4 to kick into high gear before the Vessel of Hatred DLC, it really needed to bring back the casual players.

There are the Diablo fans who play every season, starting a new character, hitting max level, and then doing it all again next season. Then there are the players with just one to two characters they like to play, who now sit in the Eternal Realm. They’re quite invested in these characters and don’t have the time to start again every season.

Their interest is piqued by Vessel of Hatred, as they get more story content for their characters, and while they might try a new class one day, right now all they want is fresh quests. They’ve played Helltides and they’re in no rush to do any more of them.

These players also wish they could experience the new side stories that get added to Diablo 4 every season, but it’s not worth the time investment of starting a new character. Luckily, Season 5 changed all of this.

Not only did it finally add some new story content for players in the Eternal Realm (where formerly seasonal characters go once that season ends), it also made that story a frightening warning about the horrors Mephisto will unleash on Sanctuary once he’s free. This is almost certainly going to happen in the DLC.

So, not only did Blizzard continue to improve Diablo 4’s seasons by listening to their fanbase, but they also reminded the players who were starting to give up on the game that there was still content for them to enjoy. By tying the seasonal story to the overarching narrative of Mephisto’s return, Season 5 served as a delicious appetizer for those looking to get back into Diablo 4.

The best part is players don’t even need to start a seasonal character to enjoy it, those with Eternal Realm characters simply need to boot up an existing one, enter World Tier 3, and look at their main quest log. Once Vessel of Hatred comes and goes, future seasons will continue to receive fresh story content for those who enjoy the Eternal Realm.

Making players start a new character every season is a hangover from Diablo 3, and while it makes sense to level the playing field every three months, those who resented it then still resent it now. Games like WoW and Destiny just build on what came before, allowing players to continue their journey with their “main” character, so it’s nice to see Diablo 4 begin to adopt a similar approach.

If Blizzard can continue to expand the game after Vessel of Hatred, while supporting both types of fans, Diablo 4 could maintain a solid player base for years to come.