Blizzard 'learned a lot of lessons' from having to emergency fix Diablo 4 season 3's vault dungeons, but says they'd need more work before bringing them back permanently

In January, Blizzard had to drop a late-night emergency patch to turn Diablo 4 season 3 around. Within a day of launch, players decided the robot spider companion was useless and that dodging traps in the new vault dungeons wasn't worth the headache. Blizzard quickly boosted the strength of the pet and streamlined vaults, making them so abundant with loot that now players are sad they'll be leaving when season 4 launches on May 14.

Blizzard has repeatedly said it wants to be very careful with how it brings seasonal features back so it won't clutter up the non-seasonal mode of the game. We've seen a few item-based features return, like season 1's malignant heart powers and season 2's vampiric powers, but seasonal dungeon types or events haven't reappeared.

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The newly reworked Helltide open world events coming permanently to the game alongside season 4 are the first sign of how Blizzard might intend to bring back fan-favorite systems.

'Helltide Reborn', as Blizzard is calling it, incorporates ideas we saw in season 2's Blood Harvest events, which were stuffed with monsters and activities for players to participate in. It's a full redesign of an old event that was starting to fall behind everything else Blizzard has added to the game since launch, and it might be the blueprint for returning features down the line.

«I'm not gonna suggest that vaults could never return in the future.»

When I asked associate game director Joe Piepiora if we might see season 3's vaults again, he wouldn't say no, but he thinks they'd need some work before they become a permanent dungeon type in the game. He acknowledged their value as some of the fastest dungeons to run and their efficiency over regular endgame Nightmare Dungeons, but was also aware that nobody likes having to carefully maneuver around traps.

«I'm not