Diablo 4 Season 1 Prep You Need to Do Before the Season Starts

Diablo 4’s first seasonal content—Season of the Malignant—was revealed in the first week of July. Blizzard is sticking with the tried and tested “re-grind a character.” The characters you’re using cannot play the upcoming seasonal storyline, progress the seasonal battle pass, or use the seasonal mechanic. That doesn’t mean they become useless once Season 1 starts, though; there are still a few ways to use your “eternal” characters to prep for the seasonal characters you’ll run.

Before you run off to Sanctuary again to grind your Paragon levels, you should know that there are some non-seasonal activities you should complete first in Diablo 4. In this guide, I’ll list everything you should finish before Season of the Malignant launches in July 20.

Finish the Campaign

The most important thing you can do in this list is to complete Diablo 4’s main campaign before Season 1 starts. The reason is that to access any of the new seasonal content in Season of the Malignant—or any future seasons, for that matter—you need to finish the storyline. Moreover, the story for Season 1 takes place after the story. While these seasons will just be mere side stories, according to Blizzard, they’ll likely be spoiler territory for those that don’t know about Inarius’ and Lilith’s lovers’ quarrel.

Note that you only need to finish the campaign at least once on one of your characters. If you do this, you can skip the campaign on other characters and automatically progress to the new storyline and endgame activities. And yes, that includes seasonal characters. While you won’t be able to do main quests anymore, at least you can focus on doing more events and dungeons.

You’re in excellent shape if you’ve seen the credits roll and unlocked the Tree of Whispers, but if not, get your arse back in Sanctuary and finish the story before Season 1 arrives.

Clear the Fog On the Map

Based on the dev chat that just happened with Rob Fergusson, the Diablo franchise head, the sections of the world map that you’ve revealed before the launch of Season 1 will be carried over upon making a new seasonal character.

When you first started playing Diablo 4, you undoubtedly spent many hours walking around the map to uncover every area. Thankfully, your efforts aren’t in vain; some aspects of your world will carry over from the Eternal Realm and future seasons. That said, there are still a few missing spots left on your map, which you’ll need to fix now to make your life (and navigation) more convenient when Season of the Malignant starts. At the very least, you’ll get some Renown out of it.

Interact With All Altars of Lilith

In a similar vein regarding the map, all of the Altars of Lilith you find will carry over to Season 1. Originally, the permanent buffs to stats from the altars would become permanently bound to your account, while Renown would not, so this is a significant change. However, starting July 20, all Altars of Lilith will remain unlocked for players when starting a new character. This means you can track all the statues down now to ensure you have massive amounts of Renown for your character on day one.

The Altars of Lilith are absolute must-haves for anyone playing Diablo 4 as they increase your character’s power. This way, you can boost your stats before the first season starts.

Still Not Enough? Increase Your Renown With Other Methods Then

Clearing the map and finding Altars of Lilith is probably enough to get you the Renown you’ll need for your character, but if not, you can opt to do side missions, dungeons, and strongholds. Note that all of these will be reset for seasonal content after you clear them.

Rob Fergusson cited this during the dev chat, stating that players must redo all the dungeons they’ve previously finished in the coming season. With this information in mind, it’s probably best to prioritize dungeons that also have side quests paired with them. That way, you can save more time since clearing related side quests to a dungeon nets you more Renown, XP, and Aspect rewards.

Decide On Which Class to Pick

While this isn’t something you can do in-game, it’s still worth considering. Mulling over the first character you’ll play is arguably the most crucial factor if you want to have fun in Season of the Malignant. The best part about the seasonal reset and making a new character every three months is that you can try a different playstyle or class. For example, you played as a Necromancer at launch. You can do just that if you want to mix it up and plow your way through sheer force like a Barbarian. You could also just pick a class you’re most comfortable using or something that might complement a friend’s class in case you do a lot of co-op runs.

Of course, should you want to stick with the class you’re currently using, there’s nothing wrong with that. It might be a fun idea to craft different builds to shake up your experience in that manner instead. Whatever the case, it’s always good to have an idea or two of what you want to play before the big day, lest you get stuck with a dilemma when Season of the Malignant plops down to Sanctuary.