Future Diablo 4 updates will lock season content behind an additional purchase for the first time

Blizzard is now planning to lock specific bits of seasonal content behind an additional purchase with upcoming updates for Diablo 4. While seasonal content has always been free for base game players, new updates will make sure players own the latest expansion to experience everything. 

While expansion buyers do make up more than 60% of the current Diablo 4 fanbase, thousands of base game players will have content locked away from them.

Diablo 4 locks content behind VoH

Speaking to Polygon, Diablo franchise lead Rod Fergusson revealed that future season updates will not allow base game players to experience every piece of content that’s added. Fergusson explained that this move isn’t being made to take content away from base game players, but to enhance expansion buyers. 

“We launched at the beginning of season 6, so you could roll a Spiritborn as your new thing,” Fergusson said. “So it can feel like a little bit like this expansion is just a single moment in time, and I just wanted to highlight that that’s not the case. We’re going to continue to develop features that will be, essentially, exclusive to Vessel of Hatred owners.”’

Internally at Blizzard, Season 7 is seen as “Chapter 2”, and this update will include a bunch of exclusive content for players who purchased the Vessel of Hatred expansion. This could include new missions that are set in expansion-only locations, for example.

“As we continue chapter two, as a Vessel of Hatred owner, you’ll get access to other stuff in chapter two as part of your ownership,” the Diablo franchise lead said. “So we’re going to continue to have [Vessel of Hatred] be valuable beyond Season 6 as well.”

Blizzard has not revealed how much content will be kept locked behind the expansion in future seasons. However, with a healthy number of base game players still playing new seasons on release, there will hopefully still be a healthy percentage of new content for those gamers as well. 

For more Diablo articles, read about the sad passing of D4 producer Erin Fusco who unfortunately lost their battle with cancer.