Diablo 4 Season of the Malignant release date announced, seasonal story revealed

The latest Diablo 4 developer update has now revealed the start date for the ARPG’s inaugural chapter entitled Season of the Malignant and it is reportedly slated for July 20, 2023. In addition to the first chapter’s launch window, associate game director Joseph Piepiora also announced that Season 1’s story will take place after the initial campaign that saw the protagonist defeating both Lilith and Mephisto.

Even though the Lord and the Daughter of Hatred have both been defeated, a corruption continues to spread throughout Sanctuary and it will be up to the protagonists to combat the evils that are riding rampant throughout the land. According to the official trailer, new NPC named Cormand will also be introduced and prominently featured during the course of the new plot line so there’ll be plenty to look forward to for all players involved.

Of course, with fans now being required to start over from scratch by creating a new character in the seasonal realm, there will naturally be more incentives introduced as part of the new season in order to entice players to partake in the upcoming chapter. One of these incentives is the mere fact that you’ll only be able to progress the battle pass by playing in the Seasonal realm.

If you run through sessions in either the Eternal or Hardcore realm, you will unfortunately not be able to advance through the BP. The good news, though, is that all of the items (apart from weapons) acquired through the battle pass will be “class agnostic,” meaning it won’t be tied to a specific class.

Naturally, Season of the Malignant’s new story can only be experienced once you’ve finished the initial campaign. This means that if you haven’t defeated Mephisto and Lilith in battle yet, then you’ll have to do so quickly or you might just miss out on all the new goodies included with the next chapter update.