The Diablo 4 Season 5 PTR is imminent, and it’s looking like the biggest upgrade yet

The Diablo 4 Season 5 PTR is imminent and, while the next season of the Blizzard RPG might be a little shorter than usual due to the launch of the Vessel of Hatred DLC, it’s already shaping up to be one of the biggest upgrades yet. A special Diablo 4 Campfire Chat showcases the big Season 5 changes we can expect to test out when the PTR kicks off in just a few days, and it includes a huge number of new legendary and unique items for your endgame builds alongside some very welcome quality-of-life upgrades.

While the Loot Reborn overhaul introduced with Diablo 4 Season 4 has certainly given the game the breath of life it needed, it has felt a little light on other new additions, save for its endgame activity The Pit. Season 5, however, looks to be rectifying that, offering one of the biggest content drops the Blizzard RPG has seen yet and ensuring we’ll have plenty to keep us busy until the Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred release date arrives in October.

The new season is finally taking us back to Hell for the first time since the main story concluded. Leading the pack is a new quest line set after the events of the Diablo 4 campaign, which will be available on both the Seasonal and Eternal realms. Completing this gives you access to a new endgame activity, The Infernal Hordes – and don’t worry, you’ll only need to beat it once to unlock the new mode across your whole account permanently.

The Infernal Hordes is a new wave-based survival mode that takes its cues from the best roguelike games. You’ll take on endless, increasingly challenging hordes, with the ability to choose between three ‘Infernal Offers’ between waves. Each of these will grant you a powerful boon but also a dangerous bane, amplifying the risk/reward potential as you progress. Survive long enough and you’ll face the Fell Council, a callback to Diablo 2 – beat them and you’ll get access to the valuable Spoils of Hell.

As for the rewards on offer, Season 5 is absolutely packed with them. All told, community manager Adam Fletcher says there are more than 50 new legendary and unique items – an absolutely mammoth collection that should really refresh the loot pool. This includes some really welcome mobility and utility options, even giving Necromancers some new ways to get about more quickly. In addition to this, each of the Diablo 4 classes can now make use of a wider range of weapon types.

There are also a whole heap of balance tweaks and changes to look forward to as you might expect. It should make the update a real proving ground for new candidates to the best Diablo 4 builds, which is great news for anyone worried that we might have been gradually cruising along until the DLC arrives.

That’s not the end, however; Blizzard has a big list of quality-of-life updates on the cards too. Endgame bosses can be fought repeatedly without resetting dungeons, while the Beast in Ice now acts as a standard dungeon and summoning Varshan only requires Malignant Hearts rather than the full collection of body parts, making them much faster to farm.

Whisper bounties have been rebalanced during Helltides to make it a lot faster to farm your Grim Favors. You’ll also now be able to get uniques and mythic uniques (Blizzard’s new name for uber uniques like the Shako helmet) from Whisper Caches, the Purveyor of Curiosities, and Helltide Tortured Gifts, meaning you’ll have a much higher chance to discover those ultra-rare endgame items.

Finally, some very nice accessibility options have been introduced. The ‘auto-pin new quests’ option will drop a map pin on your current destination as soon as you activate a quest, saving you from manually placing them, while an optional on-screen compass and audio navigation assistance will make it more straightforward than ever to get where you need to be.

The Diablo 4 Season 5 PTR runs from Tuesday June 25 to Tuesday July 2. It will be available for all players with a Battlenet account on PC. It will require a separate download to access, although Fletcher notes that if you still have the Season 4 PTR client installed, it will update straight into the Season 5 PTR when it launches.

Fletcher also confirms during the live stream that, as expected, Season 5 will be a little shorter than other Diablo 4 seasons due to the launch of the Vessel of Hatred DLC. Season 6, he explains, will begin alongside the expansion, meaning everyone will be starting fresh together when Vessel of Hatred arrives. Nevertheless, despite its shorter duration, it’s sounding like one of the most exciting updates yet.

Can’t wait until then? Here are the best games like Diablo on PC to satisfy all your loot cravings. Or if you fancy branching out a little more, we’ve picked out the best free PC games to give you plenty of options that won’t cost you a thing to try.

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