As Diablo 4 Launches Season 8, Blizzard Responds to Roadmap Criticism, Reveals Plans to Update the Skill Tree, and Explains Controversial Battle Pass Changes

Diablo 4 has launched Season 8 and with it kicked off a series of free updates that will, eventually, lead into the action role-playing game’s second expansion, due out at some point in 2026.

But not all is well within Diablo 4’s ravenous core community. It is a player base hungry for significant new features, reworks, and fresh ways to play the near two-year-old game, and it’s not shy about letting Blizzard know how it feels. Yes, Diablo 4 is more than its core community, with a significant number of casual players who just like to blast monsters without too much thought on how they’re doing it. But the foundation of Diablo 4’s community is made up of veteran fans who play week in, week out, fuss over meta builds, and want Blizzard to give them much more to think about.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Diablo 4’s recently released 2025 roadmap — the first Blizzard has released for the game — suffered a backlash. In the wake of the roadmap’s release, Diablo 4’s community expressed concern about what's coming up in 2025, including Season 8, and questioned whether there’s enough new content to keep them coming back.

The debate online got to the point where a Diablo community manager stepped into the main thread on the Diablo 4 subreddit to address the complaints: “We added fewer details to the later parts of the roadmap to accommodate for things the team is still working on,” they insisted. “This isn't all that's coming in 2025 :)” Even Mike Ybarra, former president of Blizzard Entertainment and corporate boss at its parent company, Microsoft, waded into the debate with a few choice words.

Season 8 launches not only with all this in mind, but with a number of controversial changes of its own. Chief among them is a significant change to Diablo 4’s battle pass to bring it more in-line with Call of Duty’s, offering players the chance to unlock items in a non-linear fashion. But the battle pass now pays out less virtual currency than before, leaving players with less currency to put towards subsequent battle passes.

In this sweeping interview with IGN, Diablo 4 lead live game designer Colin Finer and Diablo 4 lead seasons designer Deric Nunez respond to the reaction to the roadmap, confirm plans to update Diablo 4's skill tree (something players have wanted for some time now), and explain those changes to the battle pass.

IGN: How is the team feeling about the rollout of Season 8? Are there any challenges you're predicting that you might have to tackle?

Colin Finer: Season 8, we're feeling really good about it. The thing we're really looking out for is anything crazy that happens in the first week. We're looking to see if there's anything that's gonna be underperforming as part of the boss powers, which is the big marquee seasonal thing that we've introduced in this season. So anything that might be underperforming, we're looking to make buffs. To anything that's massively overperforming, that's just breaking the game in terms of, you get one boss power and now everything is easy, we're probably gonna be toning down.

It's nothing that we’re too scared about. We find on Diablo the harder something is to balance, the more fun it is. So I think it's in a pretty good spot. We're excited for this season to come out and really have players become bosses.

IGN: Has the team's philosophy around buffing and nerfing following a season rollout changed over the course of Diablo 4’s lifetime?

Colin Finer: Absolutely has evolved and changed, and a lot of it has been revolving around what we try and uphold and respect, which is player time investment and where players are having fun and meeting them there.

So just to give a history on it, in the very first season of Diablo 4, we made a bunch of changes, sweeping nerfs to the game because we wanted it to fit more within our launch vision of the game, where combat was a little bit slow and methodical, and you're gonna take monsters one-on-one, and bosses are gonna be really challenging and difficult. Obviously, that didn't go super well because it felt like were defining what the fun of the game was for the players.

Over time we've become a lot more hands off once a season goes live. We don't want to necessarily make any big changes in the middle of a season, for example, to nerf or do big buffs to classes, because we again want to respect player time investment.

For a while we had a thought after Season 1 where it was like, ‘OK well, we won't nerf at the start of a season, but we will make big nerfs in the middle of a season, or will make big buffs in a season.’ As we saw progression became more deep and we added more ways to min-max your characters, we felt like doing big sweeping changes in the middle of a season would disrespect player time investment. You might work your way up to a really powerful Necromancer build with tons of minions, you've tempered your gear, you've masterworked it, and then if we found that it was too powerful in the middle of a season, it was way overperforming, if we nerf that, that meant all that time you put into that character was essentially being thrown away. So we didn't like that.

And we didn't like the other part where we were going to massively buff a class, for example, in the middle of the season, because you might have wanted to play that. But now, now that you haven't invested in that build, now it presents this obnoxious challenge where it's like, ‘Well, I wanted to play this, it wasn't strong at the start of a season, and now it's this big climb to get to that point where you've unlocked this new build for me.’

In Season 8, what we're really looking at now is being a little bit more reactive early into a season and then taking a step back. What that changes now in terms of our philosophy is if we see something in the start of a season that is crazy or overperforming — and how we define overperforming is that it's just short-cutting a lot of the challenge and progression of the game.

Season 7, to give you a clear example of that, we felt like Blood Wave Necromancer was doing this, where you get one unique item on the Necromancer, and now all the bosses in the game are falling over. You're one-shotting everything in the game. We like getting to that point. We like when players can become God-like powerful. We don't like when it's cheapened by one item or one interaction that invalidates everyone else's journey to get to that spot.

So we're going to be looking in Season 8 for early outperformers like that, taking S-plus builds to just an S. And if there's anything new that we've added — for example, we've added this really cool unique item on the Sorcerer that allows you to fan out Ice Shards — if, for example, that underperforms we will also be buffing those early into a season.

So it's really just being a little bit more reactive earlier into a season and then taking a step back and letting players have fun with all the stuff that we've added.

IGN: I'm big into Diablo lore, and so it's exciting to see Belial arrive in Diablo 4 as part of Season 8. Why Belial now? And for Diablo lore fans, is there anything meaningful here they should keep an eye out for?

Colin Finer: Absolutely. Diablo, the genre and the IP, greater and lesser evils always have a way of somehow coming back into Sanctuary, right? You thought you had banished them, like Lilith was banished to the abyss but she somehow came back. So Belial is another great example of that. In Diablo 3, he took over Caldeum, throughout the Iron Wolves, which you now see in the outskirts of Diablo 4, and they've been cast out. They're sort of outcasts.

In terms of why Belial now? In Vessel of Hatred, Mephisto is walking the earth in his human form, all hell has broken loose, and Belial, who's a lesser evil, obviously can't pass up this opportunity to try and wreak havoc, take advantage of the chaos, take advantage of the fact that the gates of hell are open, Mephisto is walking the earth. And this felt like the proper time for someone like Belial, who's such an incredibly cool villain, incredibly cool demon, to want to come in and take advantage of this chaos.

So overall, the narrative that we're really pursuing and interested in is that Diablo 4 is evolving with these expansions and the Vessel of Hatred kicked off this... you never know who's going to come back. So we have a ton of big bads up our sleeves who are looking and eager to come back into Sanctuary to take advantage of this madness.

IGN: You'll obviously be keenly aware of some of the reaction to the roadmap among the core community. I think it's fair to say there's been some mixed reaction there. Were you surprised by some of the reaction about what was coming to the game this year?

Colin Finer: I don't know it was necessarily surprising. You know, if you ask our fans, 'What is it you want more of?' It's more details, more content, more things. So we know we have an obligation and we're in service of the player in terms of really getting them a fantastic experience and adding and evolving Diablo 4 over time.

What we are talking about more on is ensuring that the players understand that this is just a starting point and that it is a conversation with the player base. Part of the seasonal model that we really enjoy is that seasons are a place for us to try really big, crazy, bold new ideas that we then can use community interaction and conversations to validate what's working for them, to then bring it into the eternal game and to evolve Diablo 4 over time.

So a good example, if you think back to our past, we did this crazy Blood Harvest in Season 2 where all these vampires were running around, it was all hell broken loose on the overworld, and we took a lot of those lessons learned and things that players really enjoyed and pulled that straight into Season 4 with our updates to Helltides. So we're always looking to have a conversation with the community and hearing their thoughts on what's working for them and to pull that back into the broader game of Diablo 4 to make it feel like it's evolving over time.

Part of this was, we have Nightmare Dungeons and Infernal Hordes, we have a couple of features called out on the roadmap, and again, it's a starting point. We'd love to hear some of the community thoughts and feedback when they see these things in terms of like, ‘Oh, I wish this thing was changed in Infernal Hordes,’ for example. That gives us a lot of great validation in the direction that we're heading on that particular feature.

Deric Nunez: My initial reaction to the reactions of the roadmap, it was all definitely very fair feedback. We see the roadmap as the kickoff for a conversation that we're looking to have with the player base. Obviously things get a bit more obfuscated the further out we get. We're really excited that some element of what the fans are looking for will definitely be revealed as we get further along. When it's all said and done, I think we'll be in an overall very strong place for Diablo 4, as we make the road towards the next expansion and refining that foundation and seeding in the new seasonal fun that we'd like to inject season after season.

The fact we're getting so much feedback from a broad spectrum of the player base, the hardcore blasters and the casuals alike, is definitely all very important for us as we make decisions moving forward, and also validating some of the decisions and directions that we're already taking with the roadmap yet to be revealed.

IGN: I play a lot of Diablo and I play a lot of Call of Duty, and it looks like Diablo 4’s new battle pass has taken some inspiration from Call of Duty with the way you can now pick what you’re working towards. Can you talk about why you’ve changed it in this way?

Colin Finer: We are updating the battle pass in Season 8 with a new system called Reliquaries. A lot of this was driven by, the battle pass just felt like a pretty long and tedious grind through 150 levels to get the things that you wanted. And we felt like that wasn't necessarily servicing our players in the best way that we could.

Diablo, there's a lot of different ways to target or get chances at the types of loot that you want in the game. There's a lot of control, there's a lot of ways for players to manipulate the odds, or target something they want, just like the Lair Boss system where maybe there's a specific boss you want and you can farm that boss to get the unique item of your dreams.

The Reliquary system aims to inject some of that choice and allow players to drive and work towards the things that they actually want out of the battle pass. The high level was, how do we get players more in the driver's seat in terms of claiming some of the stuff that they actually want out of the battle pass? We think it's just a lot more flexible now.

IGN: I’ve seen negative feedback to some of the changes to the battle pass where you get less virtual currency back from it now than before. That won’t have passed you by. Can you talk about the reasoning behind those changes?

Colin Finer: Yeah, I think it's definitely fair reaction. We're always listening. I think the thing that we think works a lot better as part of the system is, again, you're able to really work towards and pick the things you want out of the system. I believe also the Platinum that you gain out of the entire system is available to everyone now. So you don't even need to buy the battle pass necessarily to gain some of those things back. So it's a net win for everybody overall, in that sense.

IGN: For Season 9, is there anything on the roadmap that people can expect might change either as a result of feedback or because things have become clearer internally? Or is everything on the roadmap that we're seeing now still what people can expect? I'm talking about Season 9 there but that can extend to Season 10 as well.

Colin Finer: At a high level, it really sets the expectation for what is the big major thing that we're gonna work on. But just like Season 8, how it has tons of quality of life changes, tons of updates, tons of details, each future season is also going to have that level of detail, content, and variety.

I'll give you a great example: because it was the Season of Bosses in Season 8, we thought what better time and opportunity do we have to actually update a lot of the bosses that exist in our game? So we took a look at Duriel. He's been in the game for quite a while. We've completely changed the fight. We've added some new attacks. We've added a lot of fun new ways for him to eat you and kill you. Those level of details all coalesce into one really solid, incredible package for a season that the roadmap just isn't really able to capture at this point. Because it's really just trying to say, 'We're going to be investing and looking into Nightmare Dungeons... how do we level up that system and feature?' And there's just going to be so much that goes into it that really is hard to sell with just a few bullet points in terms of telling players where we're actually heading.

Deric Nunez: The devil will definitely be in the details when we reveal more. There's a lot more beyond the veil, the broad stroke of what was revealed.

IGN: Generally, there is a desire from players for brand new skills and build variety. What's the thinking there about whether or not to do it either way?

Colin Finer: This is a really meaty question, so I'll dive into a couple sections. Our goal every season is to completely refresh the meta and make it feel like there's tons of exciting new ways to play the game. A great example of this is you might have played a Whirlwind Barbarian last season, but you can still play it this season, and our hope that the boss powers that we've added that are unique to this season have ways to actually make that Whirlwind Barbarian feel completely different and get you to care about different things, and to have it change the way you play.

So a great example is one of the boss powers has essentially a power that when you're channelling, it's going to fire a death laser beam. It's the Wandering Death. If you fought that one, you get to rip the power out of it, and now while you're Whirlwinding it's going to shoot that death laser. So that's a really cool way for you to have a really big impact on your overall build while still having a similar playstyle.

As far as the skill tree changes, I can confirm we are talking about updates to the skill tree, but I don't have any details. It's something the team is taking very seriously, and we are talking about, what is a major change that we think would create more build variety and more build diversity going forward?

The reason why it's going to take us quite a while is it's kind of a big problem to entangle. So right now, just to dive into some of the details, Legendary aspects are two parts that we consider problematic. It's both customization, which is like, 'I want my — for example, if you played Rogue — Twisting Blades to orbit around me.' We think that's a really cool thing and really cool playstyle customization choice.

But because it's a Legendary item, it also has what we call power growth, which is, now Twisting Blades deals more damage. And what that means is if you want to play a Twisting Blades Rogue, you have to play with the Twisting Blades orbiting around you playstyle, right? We've just sort of said because there's both power on this as well as customization, this is the only way you're allowed to play Twisting Blades Rogue.

So we want to separate some of that out. We want to pull more of the customization into the skill tree and allow aspects to be more power growth. That's a lot to entangle and that's why it's a lot of conversations that we're having right now. And it's a lot of work on us to make sure we get it right, so that we release it into a high quality state. That's just like a little insight into the philosophy that we're working towards as part of that.

The TL;DR to that is we do want to do something to the skill tree, no plans that I can share now, but it's something that we're definitely talking about.

Diablo 4 Season 8 is live now.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.