Future Diablo 4 seasons might not require an entirely new character

(Image credit: Tyler C. / Activision Blizzard)

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Diablo 4's Lilith — (Image credit: Tyler C. / Activision Blizzard)

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Diablo 4 requires you to make a new character every season and that fact has everyone imagining a world where that isn't the case. It's an RPG where you customize a character and spend hundreds of hours with them, why should you have to re-do that every three months?

It turns out, Diablo 3 has had an answer to this for years now. Its Rebirth feature lets you transfer an existing character over to a season, but all their items stay behind and they start the season at level 1. That might not sound like much of an improvement—and it's really not—but you at least get to keep playing the same character you may have gotten attached to, and you can keep doing so every season.

The new character customization options in Diablo 4 would make a Rebirth feature even more valuable than in Diablo 3, and, according to global community development director Adam Fletcher, "the team is aware" that people would love to see this added in the future.

"Rebirth isn’t a feature in D4 yet," Fletcher wrote. Maybe it's a bit of a stretch at this point to read "yet" to mean that it's definitely coming, but it's a good sign that they're aware of it regardless. There are plenty of new and returning action RPG players who have never participated in seasons before and Rebirth could make it slightly less confusing.

Rebirth isn't a feature in D4 yet. But we've heard this a bunch so the team is aware. — (Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Currently, the only things you can take over to Diablo 4's seasons are your campaign completion, discovered areas, and your Altars of Lilith progress. Everything else is reset. So, if your Necromancer has a killer look, you'd better have a screenshot or a good memory if you want to recreate them. Once the season is over, however, your character will be returned to the Eternal Realm, aka the normal game, with every new item except the season-specific ones carried over with them.

Diablo 4 season 1, the Season of the Malignant, starts on July 20.

Tyler has covered games, games culture, and hardware for over a decade before joining PC Gamer as Associate Editor. He's done in-depth reporting on communities and games as well as criticism for sites like Polygon, Wired, and Waypoint. He's interested in the weird and the fascinating when it comes to games, spending time probing for stories and talking to the people involved. Tyler loves sinking into games like Final Fantasy 14, Overwatch, and Dark Souls to see what makes them tick and pluck out the parts worth talking about. His goal is to talk about games the way they are: broken, beautiful, and bizarre.