Diablo 4 Season 8 launches April 29 and, in addition to overhauling the game’s endgame boss system, will also completely rework its battle pass to give players more control over which rewards interest them the most.
The new battle pass system is called The Reliquary, and it breaks down rewards that would typically be in the battle pass into a number of different categories. The core seasonal Reliquary will actually be free, and at least for Season 8, will include a new Town Portal cosmetic, a weapon cosmetic, mount cosmetics, and some of the game’s premium currency, Platinum. Meanwhile, separate Reliquaries for cosmetic armor, weapons, and “beasts” (aka pets and mounts) will also be available to unlock with Platinum.
Each reward in each Reliquary can be unlocked in any order using a new currency called Favor Tokens that are earned from slaying monsters and completing quests. Claiming all of the rewards from a particular Reliquary will then grant a bonus reward that doesn’t require a Favor Token to unlock. Players will be able to hold 99 Favor Tokens at one time, with items costing anywhere from two Favor Token to 10.
Individually, each Reliquary is cheaper than Diablo 4’s previous battle passes, and Blizzard will offer a premium battle pass bundle that will include all of a season’s Reliquaries for 1,000 Platinum, the same price as previous battle passes.
In a group interview attended by GameSpot, Diablo 4 associate director of game design Colin Finer shared more insight into what prompted the battle pass change.
“When we were thinking about the battle pass, we had gotten a lot of feedback that it just wasn’t in the spirit of Diablo,” Finer said. “There was just a bunch of stuff that you didn’t actually care about. You’re grinding through a bunch of things and you didn’t really have any agency. That didn’t feel Diablo. Diablo’s all about that agency, playing it your way. That’s why we have bosses that allow you to target Uniques. We felt like the battle pass wasn’t servicing that.
“A lot of the changes to the battle pass and introducing the Reliquary system is really about putting players in the driver’s seat in order to target the rewards they are looking for. We think this is a lot more Diablo, it’s a lot more control on the player’s end. We think it’s a pretty big improvement.”
Players may remember that Diablo 4’s previous battle passes actually granted players free seasonal power in the form of Smoldering Ashes that could be used to improve Season Blessings, buffs that granted more XP or other perks for the duration of the season. While the old battle pass system is no more, Smoldering Ashes and Season Blessing will now be incorporated as part of the game’s Seasonal Journey system and work exactly as before.
There will also be special Event Reliquaries that will be available for shorter amounts of time than a typical season. That piece of info goes hand-in-hand with Diablo 4’s upcoming IP crossover with the dark fantasy manga, Berserk, set to begin on May 6 and which will no doubt take advantage of the new system.
