Diablo 4 Season 8 will be all about taking on the game’s endgame bosses and channeling their powers, Blizzard revealed, along the way confirming the return of one of the franchise’s biggest bosses ever.
As part of a recent Campfire Chat livestream, Blizzard discussed what players can expect from Season 8. Alongside a slower pace, difficulty changes, and class balance updates, the theme of Season 8 will revolve around a revamped endgame boss system that will make channeling them more straightforward and rewarding.
Three new endgame bosses in total will be added as part of Season 8: Urivar and the Harbinger of Hatred from Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred campaign, and a third that will be familiar to Diablo 3 players. That boss is none other than Belial, the Lord of Lies, who will serve as the game’s new pinnacle boss. Players may remember him from his multi-phase Act-2 battle in Diablo 3, the final phase of which his massive form took up the majority of the screen.
“Belial is back in Sanctuary,” Diablo 4 lead season designer Deric Nuñez said during the livestream. “He is climbing his way to the top of the lair boss ladder. He is the new exalted, pinnacle challenge within the ladder. He is the highest challenge, the highest reward.”
Defeating the endgame bosses during Season 8 will unlock that boss’ powers for players to use. There will be a total of 24 boss powers to collect and experiment with as part of Season 8, Blizzard said. There will additionally be a new boss-rush style open world event, Apparition Incursions, that players can take part in as part of the Season. Defeating and looting any endgame boss will have a small chance to initiate an ambush by Belial (in his smaller, less screen-covering form). If players can then take out Belial too, the loot rewards will double.
“This is really cool, because it’s like a two-for-the-price-of-one payout,” Nuñez said.
Alongside the new bosses and the ability to channel some of their iconic powers, Blizzard is vastly simplifying the boss summoning process. Currently, players collect a number of different items required to summon different bosses, resulting in inventory clutter and a constant state of having some items needed to summon a boss but not the others.
Come Season 8, that system will be done away with and replaced by a much simpler Lair Key system. Each endgame boss will require their own Lair Key, but those keys are only used to unlock their hoard of loot upon being defeated. Players will actually be able to challenge the endgame bosses at any time in order to see how their character stacks up and to practice and learn each bosses mechanics, without the risk of losing precious boss summoning materials as is currently the case.
The public test realm for Diablo 4 Season 8 will start on March 11. Season 8 proper, meanwhile, was recently delayed and is expected to arrive April 29.