Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Diablo 4 is getting an all-new character class and region in its first expansion Vessel of Hatred.
BlizzCon 2023 dropped a big reveal for Diablo 4 this weekend: the game’s first expansion is titled Vessel of Hatred, and it’s bringing a new character class to the game. The expansion is slated for a 2024 release as a paid content update, featuring a story that follows up on the base campaign with a new region and big bad.
Watch the reveal trailer below:
What’s Diablo 4’s first expansion about?
Vessel of Hatred will bring players into a new-but-old region of Sanctuary: the Torajan Jungles, which return from Diablo 2. The foliage-packed location will be the center of a new campaign that follows Mephisto as he undoubtedly tries to make his grand return to villainy. The Prime Evil Mephisto attempted to lure players over to his side in Diablo 4 against Lilith and somewhat succeeded, paving the way for his eventual return.
We don’t know much about the expansion’s content beyond its release date, except that it will introduce a wholly new class to the Diablo universe. That means we won’t get returning classes like the Paladin, but instead something brand-new that might be more relevant to this season’s theme. More details on the character class and Vessel of Hatred as a whole will come later this weekend when Blizzard holds a Deep Dive panel for the game.
What’s surprising is that this expansion has taken such a short time for Blizzard to put out. Diablo 3 took two years to come out with an expansion, but this game will have a lot more updates and seasonal content under its belt by the time Vessel of Hatred launches in just one year. It’s clear that the company wants to retain its player base for as long as possible, with confirmed annual expansions planned for the foreseeable future.
This way, the game behaves more like World of Warcraft than anything else, with a constantly-evolving story that aims to bring players back each year for more content to play through. We’ll have to wait and see how the expansion differs from Diablo 4’s seasonal content, however, which already introduces new items, endgame activities, cosmetics, storylines and more.
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred launches in 2024. Here’s everything Blizzard revealed at BlizzCon 2023, from new expansions for World of Warcraft to the new Overwatch 2 hero.