Diablo 4 season 4 'Loot Reborn' will change almost everything you know about the action RPG

I'm not exaggerating when I say that almost everything you know about Diablo 4 is about to change. I played with most of what's coming alongside season 4 last month on a playtest server and, like many others, am now counting down the days until the real thing goes live on May 14.

Diablo 4 is going to feel like a new game—and a better game than the one last launched last year. The worst parts of it have been entirely reworked in season 4, like its overly complicated loot and limited build crafting. Blizzard's name for the season, «Loot Reborn», is genuinely an understatement; this is Diablo 4 reborn.

The first thing you'll notice when season 4 begins is the lack of a seasonal mechanic on par with the vampiric powers in season 2 or the robot spider companion in season 3. Season 4 won't give your character a bunch of new toys to play with that disappear when it ends. It doesn't need that kind of twist. Instead, Blizzard has kept the seasonal theme light so the spotlight stays on all the new permanent additions to the game.

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Helltide is the star of season 4 and where you'll help the Iron Wolves, a group of mercenaries that first appeared in Diablo 2, with cleansing demon-infested regions of Sanctuary. Crushing monsters and a new boss in the now-redesigned Helltide open world events will earn you reputation with them, rewarding you with gear, boss-summoning items, and crafting materials, like the new Tempering manuals. The last reward will even grant you a Resplendent Spark, an ultra-valuable crafting material used for making an Uber Unique of your choice (you'll need four in total).

Blizzard also confirmed to me that there will be «seasonal only elixirs that are substantially more powerful than their normal counterparts,» which probably means  the ones players found on the PTR last month that made Helltide