Should you choose Seasonal Realm or Eternal Realm in Diablo 4?

Diablo 4 Vessel of hatred DLC is there, in addition to Season 6, and when you first boot up the game to select a character, you have more to choose from than just your class and hairstyle. Once you’re ready to start the game, you have one final decision to make: do you want to play in the Seasonal realm or the Eternally rich?

In this Diablo 4 guide, we’ll explain what it means to play in the Seasonal Realm or the Eternal Realmso you can make a choice and start slaying monsters right away.

When you create your character, you’ll be asked to select a few ‘Gameplay Options’ on the Finish screen. Here you can check a box indicating that you want to play a seasonal character or a hardcore character (meaning death is permanent), or both, if you check both boxes. Starting in Season 6, Seasonal is checked by default, but you enter the Eternal Realm if you uncheck that box.

The seasonal realm includes everything Diablo 4 – both campaigns, the open world, everything – plus the most recent content additions, like the seasonal content that has only been around for about twelve weeks. The Seasonal Realm is also the only place where you can make progress on your Battle Pass or the Seasonal Journey.

The Eternally rich is Diablo 4 with no seasonal bells and whistles – no battle pass, no seasonal journey, no special seasonal mechanics. However, Blizzard typically adds some new content such as Uniques and Legendary Aspects to the Eternal Realm each season, as well as mechanical add-ons such as the new end-game bosses introduced in Season 2. Vessel of hatred content is available in the Eternal Realm, if you own it.

Despite Vessel of hatred Adding a brand new campaign and class, it also brings with it Season 6, which adds the first themed season we’ve gotten in a few months: The Season of Hatred Rising. This adds a new activity and reward path where you chase large portal monsters and attempt to invade their realm. Like previous seasons, we recommend you play the Seasonal Realm and experience creating a new character – maybe even trying out the new Spiritborn class. The new seasonal mechanic is available early in the campaign and can be played alongside the new content.

While the seasonal world is the ‘intended’ way to play Diablo 4 in season 6, there are a few more reasons to stick with the eternal realm with the Vessel of hatred launch. While there are new mechanics, there is also a new campaign to try out. You may want to play that campaign with the same character you beat the original with Diablo 4 campaign, to keep things canonical. You could even play on Eternal Realm for the new campaign and then create a new Seasonal Realm character that skips both campaigns and goes straight to Season 6 content.

However, if you decide to play in the Eternal Realm for a certain amount of time, keep in mind that you will miss out on progress towards the season-specific rewards. As usual, there’s the Season Pass with all its cosmetics, plus the Season Journey, which allows you to earn some key items for a build of Blizzard’s choosing.

Just know that whatever you choose, you can only play as characters who are in the same realm as you. So if you’re playing with friends, make sure you decide where you want to play first. This is especially important if you plan to play the new one Vessel of hatred campaign with friends.

As previously mentioned, Seasonal Realm characters can only play with other Seasonal Realm characters, and the same goes for Eternal Realm characters. If you just want to jump in and play dungeons with friends using an old Eternal Realm character, you shouldn’t create a seasonal character.

Likewise, you have to start a whole new character from level 1 to play in seasons. If you’re returning to an old character and want to see what it’s like for that class after gaining some more levels, you’ll need to play in the Eternal Realm or level up a new version of that class.

You might also want to play the Eternal Realm since you’re already close to the original Diablo 4 campaign already on an old character. So if you’re in act five or six with an Eternal Realm character, it’s probably worth finishing the campaign there first and then starting a seasonal character after beating the game. Vessel of hatred campaign.

And finally, if you really hate the current season’s mechanics but still want to blast through some Diablo dungeons, you can play in the Eternal Realm to avoid the new stuff. That is unless there isn’t really a seasonal theme at all, as in Diablo 4‘s fourth and fifth seasons.

As we head into this season, here are the best Spiritborn builds, all Tenets of Akarat locations, and guides on how to unlock Mercenaries and get more loot in Kurast Undercity.