Every three months or so, Blizzard brings a new season to Diablo III to help keep things fresh and move the endgame into a new and interesting direction. These seasons bring new class changes, new tiers of endgame gear, and new themes to provide a unique feel.
This coming season will be the twentieth, titled the Season of the Forbidden Archives, will focus its theme around Kanai’s Cube. Whereas players are usually restricted to where they can apply their extracted legendary powers – weapon, armor, and jewelry – this season will allow players to equip whatever three powers they would like. You’ll be able to have three weapon powers if you’d like, or any other combination. In doing so, the Diablo developers are hoping to drastically alter the meta and provide a variety of playable builds.
The cosmetic awards from Season 8 are returning for this season as well, with a handful of new cosmetic rewards for those that push to the end of the seasonal journey. Completing your journey this time around will grant the Teganze Warrior Portrait Frame, as well as the Bat pet.
Haedrig’s Gift makes a return as always, helping to provide players with a set to begin their endgame push with. The following sets will be granted to players that earn the Gift:
- Barbarian – Immortal King’s Call
- Crusader – Seeker of the Light
- Demon Hutner – Natalya’s Vengeance
- Monk – Uliana’s Stratagem
- Necromancer – Trag’Oul’s Avatar
- Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
- Wizard – Vyr’s Amazing Arcana
Of course, you aren’t forced to use these sets just because it was given to you for free. As always, keep in mind that you can only claim the gifts on one seasonal character per Season, so don’t redeem the gift on a character that you don’t intend to play with!
Seasonal Conquests are here to provide a hefty challenge to those that want to receive the highest rewards. The Boss Mode/Worlds Apart speed challenge returns, forcing you to eliminate the majority of bosses in under twenty minutes on Torment X difficulty. Players will need to cross through all five acts if they want to claim this prestige.
The season is expected to start on March 13th, and it seems that there’s nothing that would be getting in the way of that release date. The pre-season patch should be going live soon as well, though we haven’t been given an exact date on the implementation there. Start planning your season now, and as always, see you in Hell!
