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Season 1 forDiablo 4was finallyrevealedon June 21, 2025, and there are a ton of new changes coming to the game. Called the Season of the Malignant,Diablo 4’s first season introduces a major new gameplay mechanic via Malignant Enemies and their Hearts, which grant game-breaking new powers when slotted in Jewelry – plus new Quality of Life updates, Aspects, Legendaries, and Uniques.
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The story beginsafter the events ofDiablo 4, when a new threat begins to emerge throughout Sanctuary. This Malignance affects practically all living things, turning them into bloodthirsty, mindless foes, and a new character called Cormond has taken it upon himself to figure out its cause. A former priest for the Cathedral of Light, Cormond seeks the player’s help to destroy its source once and for all.
Malignant Enemies, Caged Hearts, And New Powers
InDiablo 4Season 1,Malignant enemies can randomly spawn instead of regular Elitesthroughout all of Sanctuary. These empowered enemies will drop a Malignant Heart upon defeat. When playersuse a Cage of Binding on that Malignant Heart, a stronger version of that Elite will spawnalongside a horde of empowered enemies.
By defeating this more challenging foe and its minions,players will earn Caged Hearts, a powerful new type of equippable item that grants incredible new abilities.
What Are Caged Hearts in Season of the Malignant?
Caged Hearts work almost like Gems, but players can only socket them into Jewelry (Amulets and Rings). However, these Hearts will grant much more than a minor stat boost: each Caged Heart grants a unique power when socketed into an Infested, colored Socket, greatly increasing players' strength and build variety compared to the vanilla game.
There are 32 new Malignant powers, which essentially worklike Legendary-like abilitiesthat devs described as stupidly powerful, but hopefully balanced.
New Colored Sockets And Targeting Caged Hearts
There are three different color sockets associated with categories of these new powers, but four different types of malignant hearts: Blue, Red, Yellow, and Colorless.All Rings and Jewelry found in Season 1 will roll with Infested Socketsin one of the three colors, including Jewelry from vendors. Blue, Red, and Yellow Gems fit into their appropriate socket, while Colorless ones will fit anywhere (but are much rarer). Once socketed, Caged Hearts cannot be removed from Infested sockets without destroying them.
Caged Hearts that drop early with low stats are still useful later on because they can bedeconstructed into new materials used to craft Invokers. These Invokers are used to target certain Hearts over others at the end of Malignant Tunnels, a new set of dungeons coming toDiablo 4.
As players continue to get stronger, andaccess higher World Tiers, better Malignant Hearts will naturally drop. However,this new Season 1Diablo 4mechanic only begins once players have finished the campaign on at least one character on their account.
Malignant Tunnels Manifest As New Dungeons In Season 1
Malignant Tunnels are a new type of dungeon coming toDiablo 4with Season of the Malignant. These Malignant Tunnels have amuch higher chance to spawn Malignant-type enemies, and will always end with a choice. End-of-tunnel Malignant Outgrowths are associated with one of the four colors and require a crafted Invoker to activate.
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When an Invoker is used on one of these colored Outgrowths, anElite boss of the chosen color will spawn from the Outgrowth, granting a higher chance for that color of Caged Heart to drop upon defeat. There’s always a choice at the end, and players will be able totarget farm different Malignant Tunnelsfor specific Heart colors they need.
Throughout the rest of a Malignant Tunnel, other Elites have a higher chance to have the Malignant modifier, too, making these great areas to farm for newDiablo 4Season 1 items after the campaign is finished.
Renown and Re-Speccing Updates In Season 1
Though not all Renown will carry over,Renown earned from Altars of Lilith and discovering the map will be shared across all charactersacross all seasons and the Eternal Realm. Areas of the map that have already been revealed on one character will remain revealed on others, granting 5 renown apiece.Altars of Lilith will remain collected, too, granting 10 Renown apiece.
Essentially, players who finished the map and Altars of Lilith on one character will begin with each zone at about 2/5 Renown completion on new characters, alongside five extra Potion Charges and Skill Points at Level 1.
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Additionally, there will bea new way for players to completely reset their character’s stats… for free. To get aScroll of Amnesia, players need to complete chapters of the Seasonal Journey, as they are rewarded for finishing steps of this Season-long experience. It can only be used once, and they are relatively hard to come by, but the Scroll of Amnesia provides a much-needed, easy way to re-spec Paragon Points and Skill Points with the press of a button.
Diablo 4 Season 1’s Battle Pass and Seasonal Journey
A huge discussion in theDiablo 4community is how the game will implement the Seasonal Journey, which is standard for most ARPGs, alongside a Battle Pass, a new feature forDiablo. New details about both were finally revealed in the July 6th developer stream.
Though there are rewards that increase player power in the Seasonal Journey and Free Battle Pass, Blizzard appears to have kept its promise of keeping all Premium Battle Pass rewards cosmetic-only.
What Is Diablo 4 Seasonal Journey?
Season Journey is a series of challenges that players can complete throughout Season of the Malignant to earn unique rewards.This is free for all players, and is made up of seven total Chapters. These Chapters contain a set ofprogressively more challenging objectives,like killing World Bosses, engaging in PvP, completing a certain number of Dungeons, and more. Players only need to progress a sub-set of these challenges to finish each Chapter, after which the next Chapter – and a new, harder set of challenges – unlocks.
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By completing Seasonal Journey objectives and Chapters,players earn Favor, which in turn levels up both the Free and Premium Battle Passes. They can alsounlock new, unique Aspects for the Codex, which cannot be earned anywhere else in the game. These areavailable to allDiablo 4players, with or without the Premium pass.
Free Battle Pass vs. Paid Battle Pass for Season 1
TheBattle Pass will only progress on Seasonal realms, and playing in the Eternal Realm doesn’t count towards the Seasonal Journey or Battle Pass. Thoughthe Free Battle Pass does contain some items that grant power, through the use of Ashes which grant Seasonal Bonuses, thePremium Battle Pass willonlyreward cosmeticslike new clothes,new mount armors, and titles. The new Season 1 weapon transmogs will be exclusive to classes, while all other cosmetics in the Battle Pass can be worn by all classes.
Smouldering Ashes are earned at certain points on the free Battle Pass, and they can be used to improve Seasonal Bonuses. TheseSeasonal Bonuses are active on all Seasonal characters, and include permanent bonuses to XP gain, Gold, Materials, Elixr duration, and Malignant Heart drop chance. The system is limited by level, in fact, the first Ashes canonly be spent at Level 40, so it’s not something players can do from the get-go.
The Seasonal Journey and Free Battle Pass are, of course,free for all playersto engage with.The Premium Battle Pass will set players back $9.99, and $24.99 to skip 20 Tiers. The Deluxe and Ultimate editions grant the Premium Battle Pass for Season 1 to players automatically.
When Does Diablo 4 Season 1 Launch?
Players have been looking forward to Season 1 ofDiablo 4for what feels like years– but it’s really only been about five weeks. At the end of the cinematic trailer for Season of the Malignant, the release date for the firstDiablo 4season wasrevealed as July 20th, 2023. According to the countdown, it will launch at 11am PST on the 20th. ThePatch will release on July 18th, though players can’t create new Seasonal characters until the 20th.
Once the seasonal Patch is out, Blizzard recommends first launching the game on a character with the most completion before starting Season 1. This will verify the game can transfer shared data over to new characters, like Renown and Altars of Lilith, and make sure thatDiablo 4knows your account’s completion status throughout all future content.
Interestingly, according to the developer stream, thebasic gameplay changes will go live on the Eternal Realm on July 18th. This includes basic QoL updates and the addition of new Legendaries and Uniques, though the seasonal Malignance mechanic and the meat ofDiablo 4Season 1 will unlock two days later.
Diablo 4is available for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S
