Out of all the changes Blizzard has made to Diablo 4 since it was released two years ago, its most basic dungeons have gone largely untouched. A few things have been tweaked here and there, but they’ve largely taken a back seat to all the new dungeon types introduced after launch.
In Diablo 4’s next season, dungeons—specifically Nightmare Dungeons—will have a purpose again. Instead of an activity you do as you’re leveling up and then forget about for the next 50 hours, Nightmare Dungeons will be the source of most of the crafting materials in the game, and, of course, they’ll also have opportunities for valuable loot.
Starting in season 9, Sins of the Horadrim, portals to mini dungeons called Horadric Strongrooms can appear in Nightmare Dungeons. These little arenas are stuffed with monsters and reward you with more loot the faster you can clear them out—and you get to choose what kind of rewards you want at the end.
They also drop keys to open up a new type of dungeon: Escalating Nightmares. These are basically three Nightmare Dungeons in a row that get progressively harder and more rewarding. Monsters will gain unique buffs to make your job harder and the marathon will end with a boss fight against a souped-up Astaroth from the original campaign.
I tested Diablo 4’s new dungeons during its PTR last month and was extremely bummed to find out the Escalating Nightmares weren’t, uh, escalating very much. They had all the same problems as Nightmare Dungeons do right now: Forgettably easy monsters and bosses with piddling rewards. Blizzard said an overwhelming amount of players felt the same way. So it put in the work to crank the dials up on everything for the real season launch. Escalating Nightmares will get much harder as you move through the series of dungeons when the new season goes live, and the rewards will be much better too, the developers said during a stream today.
That’s great news for two features that will be permanent after the season is over, hopefully restoring Nightmare Dungeons as a primary thing to do in Diablo 4. I kind of missed running dungeons where I’m not under a time limit and can actually find powerful items before the end.
Sins of the Horadrim will also give you a whole suite of magical spells to customize and use, like a shower of exploding stars that also crushes those annoying walls certain enemies can make. It’s a level of flexibility that Diablo 4 seasonal powers haven’t had before, which means someone will find something that is absurdly broken I’m sure.
Sins of the Horadrim goes live on July 1, and you can view the whole rundown of what’s in it on Blizzard’s announcement post.
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