Diablo 4 has another mid-season update on the way, and the team at Blizzard is including a few early reveals for Season 5, too. In a blog post on the Blizzard forums, community manager Adam Fletcher detailed the state of Diablo 4’s mid-season patch, as well as how the team is approaching the yet-to-be-revealed Season 5 — including a Public Test Realm (PTR) for the fifth big update.
Fans of Loot Reborn, the current, fourth Season of Diablo 4, may remember the Public Test Realm being a prominent source of feedback generation for the team ahead of the season’s official release. Fletcher confirms in the post that Season 5 is getting its own PTR ahead of release as well. This means anyone who wants to join in and test the systems early is free to do so, with the main goal being data and feedback accrual so the team can fine-tune the content for public release.
The team is planning to discuss Season 5, and its PTR, on June 21 in one of their intimate “Campfire Chat” developer streams. We’ll probably get most of the details surrounding the season’s theme and when the PTR is slated to launch, but we won’t be getting any discussion of Season 4’s mid-season balance patch. Instead, those notes will go up June 14, with the patch itself launching next week (likely Tuesday).
Diablo 4 didn’t see a Public Test Realm until the massive season of Loot Reborn, and plenty of fans (myself included) see it as a win for player-developer feedback and communication. Even the more generalized data gathered in a PTR can be vital for a team, as players will sometimes gravitate toward broken builds (like the notoriously busted Dust Devil Barbarian of Season 4’s PTR).
We can also look forward to an actual seasonal theme this time around, since the team has had time to build on the game after revamping so many of its core systems. You can keep an eye out for the Campfire Chat happening June 21 over on Diablo’s Twitch page.
