As we creep ever closer to the official release of the much-anticipated continuation of the Diablo franchise, Diablo 4, players are hungry for any new information about the upcoming title.
This week Blizzard officially confirmed that the campaign for Diablo 4 is entirely skippable. Still, as with everything in life, there’s a catch.
Blizzard has revealed that players can select an option to skip the campaign when creating a new character, allowing players to leap straight to all of Diablo 4’s endgame content. However, they have confirmed that this isn’t an option players will see when they first start playing the game.
In the previous Diablo games, campaigns were intertwined with the game’s progression. Players would need to complete the story and return to crucial encounters from that campaign to farm for loot.
However, this is a system that Diablo 3’s Reaper of Souls expansion changed by allowing players to create seasonal characters and jump directly into the game’s Adventure Mode. This option was always available, and players had no requirements to play Diablo 3’s story before doing so.
As for the Skip Campaign feature in Diablo 4, there isn’t much information available yet, and as of now, we aren’t sure if skipping the campaign will skip side-quests as well because, as of now, Diablo 4 hasn’t created much of a distinction between Story and Adventure Mode.
We have yet to determine how this decision will affect the planned seasonal content. With Diablo 3, players can dive straight into progression each season. It’s starting to sound like Diablo 4 may task players to complete the campaign first and then unlock the option to skip it on other characters.
As someone excited to jump into Diablo 4 when it releases, I like not being forced to replay Diablo 4’s story with new characters after I’ve completed it once. It will be interesting to see what Blizzard does with all the freedom players can now have within the game.
Diablo 4 releases on the 6th of June for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.