Blizzard breaks down Diablo 4’s endgame activities

Diablo 4In the game’s endgame, many players will spend much of their time developing and customizing their characters with new skills, abilities, equipment, and cosmetics. In a new video released Wednesday, Blizzard outlines the various endgame activities players can engage in long after they’ve completed the story campaign and (presumably) sent the big bad Lilith back to Hell.

In the video above, Diablo 4 game director Joe Shely is joined by the game’s lead producer Kayleigh Calder; Ash Sweetring, game producer; and Joseph Piepiora, associate game director, in detail about the unlockable World Tiers, the Paragon upgrade system, Nightmare Dungeons, PvP, and everything else endgame-related.

This is what awaits you:

World levels

After completing the campaign, players will be able to access a special “capstone dungeon,” says Piepiora. Completing that dungeon unlocks the first world tier, which in turn unlocks a new difficulty setting, but also grants access to powerful new loot and other perks for your character. If you want Diablo 4 to be much, much harder, this is for you.

Paragon system

In addition to the basic skill tree, players can further customize their characters using the Paragon system. The Paragon board offers “a lot more depth, a lot more customization,” says Piepiora. Calder noted that players can rotate the Paragon board to personalize the overall direction of their endgame upgrades – many of which look like character stat boosts.

Related to the Paragon system is the Codex of Power, which allows players to equip Aspects, which can be earned through dungeons. Through Aspects, players can craft items they find Diablo 4the world more powerful, making them items of Legendary class.

Nightmare dungeons

Players can return to dungeons they’ve already played and customize them with a Sigil. These Sigils, Sweetring explains, will “change the playstyle and intensity of a dungeon”. Nightmare Dungeons are more difficult, have additional objectives and contain modifiers called Affixes. Piepiora highlighted one of those Affixes: Hellgate, which randomly opens portals in dungeons that summon monsters not native to the region.

There are “more than 120 dungeons to play through and find Diablo 4says Piepiora, and they can all become a Nightmare Dungeon.

Endgame exploration

The overworld of Diablo 4 will also be modified to include targeted activities in areas called Helltides. Monsters become more difficult and new environmental effects, such as meteors falling from the sky, will harass players as they try to defeat the forces of Hell.

There’s also a bounty system centered around a location called the Tree of Whispers, which tasks players with completing bounties at various locations in Sanctuary to earn rewards. These are contained activities that players can do alone or with a group, says Blizzard.

The fields of hate

Parts of Sanctuary’s world are poisoned by Lilith’s presence, and when players visit them, they can engage in player-vs-player combat. Players can earn items called shards in PvP, and redeeming them involves a twist: shards must be “purified” before they can be exchanged back into town, and other players can try to stop you (and your to steal shards) on your return journey. That system brings in a bit of extraction shooter flavor Diablo 4. Purified Shards can be turned in to towns to purchase special cosmetic rewards.

Diablo 4 post-launch updates

Blizzard says launch day is “just the beginning,” while Piepiora says so Diablo 4 will receive a “living, breathing set of updates” for players to engage with after the game goes live.

Diablo 4 launches on June 6 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.