Diablo 2’s New Warlock Era Doesn’t Support Legacy Graphics — And Players Are Divided

Diablo II: Resurrected has always had one particularly wonderful party trick.

Press a button and 2021 disappears.

The rebuilt monsters, dynamic lighting and detailed environments vanish, replaced instantly by the pixels, sprites and 800x600 memories of Diablo II's original era.

Then Reign of the Warlock arrived.

And for players entering Diablo II's newest era, that button effectively stopped being part of the experience.

Reign of the Warlock content does not currently support Diablo II: Resurrected's Legacy Graphics mode, leaving players divided over whether Blizzard should recreate the new expansion in an art style originally built more than 25 years ago.

For some players, that sounds like an unreasonable amount of work for a nostalgia feature.

For others, switching between old and new Diablo II was part of what made Resurrected special in the first place.

Legacy Graphics Were More Than a Joke Button

When Diablo II: Resurrected launched in 2021, Blizzard made a very deliberate choice.

The new graphics were essentially built over Diablo II rather than replacing it entirely.

Players could switch between Resurrected and Legacy visuals while playing and immediately see how closely the remake followed the original environments, monsters and animations.

Blizzard continued improving that feature after launch.

Patch 2.4 even introduced three different Legacy Graphics emulation options: GDI, Glide and Resurrected.

Blizzard described the Resurrected option as its preferred emulation mode while preserving the unfiltered GDI presentation for players who wanted something even closer to the software-rendered original.

This was not a forgotten setting buried in a menu.

Blizzard actively maintained it.

Then Diablo II started receiving things the original game had never contained.

Warlock Creates a Problem the Original Remaster Never Had

Reign of the Warlock is fundamentally different from earlier Diablo II: Resurrected updates.

Balance changes are easy enough.

A Terror Zone can reuse an existing area.

A revised Unique can reuse an existing item graphic.

But the Warlock is the first completely new playable Diablo II class in 25 years.

There is no original Warlock sprite hidden on an old Blizzard hard drive waiting to be switched on.

There is no classic animation for Miasma Chain.

No 2000-era Warlock wearing every possible armor combination.

No original set of walk, run, cast, attack, hit-recovery and death frames.

Someone would have to make them.

And Diablo II’s Old Graphics Were Not Exactly Simple

This is where the debate gets more interesting.

It is easy to look at Diablo II's original graphics today and think:

They're sprites. How difficult could it be?

Very.

Diablo II's characters were originally created as 3D models and then rendered into enormous collections of 2D frames.

A character needed animations from multiple directions.

Armor and equipment had to visually work across those animations.

Weapons changed appearance.

Different actions required different sequences.

Warlock would need to fit into all of that.

One player in the current discussion estimated that properly building a complete Warlock sprite library would effectively mean recreating a significant fraction of Diablo II's original character-art workload.

Then come the new skills.

The new items.

Interface additions.

And whatever Blizzard adds next.

Suddenly the nostalgia toggle has its own development roadmap.

Some Players Still Want Blizzard to Do It

That has not stopped people asking.

A forum thread from May includes players requesting Legacy Graphics support for Reign of the Warlock, with one saying they enjoy the original visuals so much that they are reluctant to progress into the new era without them.

Another player went considerably further:

They said they would actually pay another $30 for a legacy graphics pack.

That may sound extreme.

But Diablo II has a very unusual audience.

This is a game where selecting the correct shade of brown from the year 2000 can constitute an important artistic principle.

Others Think Blizzard’s Resources Are Better Spent Elsewhere

The opposite argument is fairly convincing too.

Diablo II: Resurrected still has bugs.

It still has balance issues.

Reign of the Warlock itself is still being tuned.

Patch 3.3 just changed several parts of the expansion ahead of Ladder Season 15.

One tiny-looking collision fix has already led players to believe Abyss Warlock became dramatically stronger in practical combat.

Blizzard also changed Worldstone Shard and Ancient Statue drop rates, while continuing to adjust the expansion's item economy.

For players who want more balancing, more endgame content and more bug fixes, assigning artists and engineers to recreate an entire new class in 25-year-old graphics is not necessarily where they want Blizzard spending its limited Diablo II resources.

Could Blizzard Fake It?

Players have suggested compromises.

One idea is to use placeholder legacy assets.

Give Warlock a recolored sprite from another class.

Simplify newer spell effects.

Reuse existing monster graphics wherever possible.

Another proposal is allowing Legacy Graphics in Reign of the Warlock while disabling the Warlock and incompatible expansion items.

That would preserve access to newer quality-of-life systems while letting people continue playing older classes with the classic presentation.

Technically elegant?

Probably not.

Very Diablo II?

Absolutely.

The Era System Makes the Divide Even More Noticeable

Reign of the Warlock introduced an unusual solution for protecting Diablo II's history.

The game is now divided between separate eras:

• Diablo II Classic
• Diablo II: Resurrected
• Diablo II: Reign of the Warlock

Characters can exist separately across those partitions and move forward through the eras.

They cannot move backward.

Blizzard calls the system “Play your Era, Your Way.”

That makes a lot of sense mechanically.

It also makes the graphical difference rather poetic.

You can preserve old Diablo II mechanically.

You can preserve its old graphics.

But once you step into the genuinely new Diablo II timeline, something eventually has to be new.

This Is the Strange Price of Diablo II Getting New Content

For decades, Diablo II nostalgia had an enormous advantage.

The past was finished.

Everything Blizzard needed to reproduce already existed.

Reign of the Warlock changed that.

For the first time, Diablo II: Resurrected is not merely restoring or modifying Diablo II.

It is creating Diablo II content that never existed in Diablo II.

That sounds obvious.

Artistically, it creates a surprisingly difficult question.

If Blizzard adds a new class in 2026, how much effort should it spend pretending that class was also made in 2000?

Some players would clearly love to see it.

Others would rather Blizzard spend those resources on Season 16.

There probably is not a perfect answer.

But there is something wonderfully Diablo II about a game receiving its first new class in 25 years and immediately inspiring an argument over whether Blizzard should remake that new class to look 25 years old.

Sources

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: Legacy graphics for Reign of the Warlock?

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: No Legacy Mode in Reign of the Warlock games?

Blizzard: Rain Annihilation in Reign of the Warlock

Blizzard: Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 2.4 — Legacy Graphics Emulation

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Diablo Immortal Is Rebalancing Six Classes for Bout of Realms — Four Are Missing

Diablo Immortal is about to rearrange part of its PvP meta in the middle of one of the game's biggest competitive events.

Blizzard has announced a new balance patch scheduled for August 26, with changes targeting six classes:

• Crusader
• Druid
• Monk
• Tempest
• Warlock
• Wizard

The changes are being announced early because Blizzard wants Bout of Realms teams to have more time to think about compositions, builds and strategy.

But four classes are conspicuously absent.

Barbarian, Blood Knight, Demon Hunter and Necromancer.

Players noticed immediately.

Because nothing says competitive balance quite like reading the patch notes and checking whether your class survived the invitation list.

The August 26 Changes Are Not Bout-Only

There was initially some confusion over whether Blizzard was creating a special balance ruleset specifically for Bout of Realms.

Community Manager Jadai clarified that this is not the case.

The adjustments were not created exclusively for the tournament.

They are normal class balance changes that will affect the game more broadly, but Blizzard is revealing them early because Bout of Realms is its most competitive mode and organized teams need extra preparation time.

That makes this considerably more important than a temporary tournament modifier.

If you play one of these six classes in Battlegrounds or elsewhere, these changes matter to you too.

Warlock Is Getting One of the Most Important PvP Nerfs

Warlock receives three listed essence adjustments, and the biggest attention is already falling on Measured Halves.

Spiteful Sacrifice will still become a moving channeled attack that throws dark-energy swords forward.

But Blizzard is changing how it behaves.

The attack interval is being increased, meaning volleys happen less frequently, although each volley will hit harder.

Movement speed while channeling is being reduced.

Range is being reduced.

And most importantly, the Sacrificial Power bonus projectiles will no longer lock onto enemy players.

Instead, they fire at the target's current position.

A moving opponent can therefore dodge them.

That is a meaningful PvP change for a class that has already generated plenty of balance arguments since arriving in Diablo Immortal.

We recently looked at how Warlock was still receiving extensive fixes to its skills and legendary interactions.

Now Blizzard is moving beyond cleanup and directly changing how some of its most important PvP tools function.

Tempest Gets More Survivability and Longer Channeling

Tempest is receiving changes to both Dream and Drown and Cyclone's Call.

Dream and Drown will now let Cascade-generated waves grant an absorb shield when they hit enemies.

Blizzard is also adding a maximum trigger range so waves cannot continue spawning around targets that are too far away.

Cyclone's Call gets a more substantial redesign.

Crosswinds remains a moving channeled skill, but Tempest will now be immune to knockback while channeling.

Enemies struck by multiple wind blades in quick succession can also suffer an additional hit.

Blizzard says wind-blade damage is increasing while energy costs fall and regeneration improves.

Translation:

Longer spinning.

More blades.

Less opportunity to politely ask Tempest to stop.

Crusader’s Shield Charge Is Becoming an Actual Charge Again

Crusader receives changes to Anointed in Blood and Forced Abjuration.

The latter is especially noticeable.

Shield Charge currently turns into a forward shield swipe that knocks enemies back, slows them and builds damage through successive hits.

After the patch, it will instead make the Crusader dash forward, damaging, knocking back and slowing enemies along the path.

Hitting an enemy also grants an absorb shield.

The successive-hit damage scaling is being removed, while base damage increases.

For a skill called Shield Charge, moving forward aggressively does feel suspiciously appropriate.

Druid and Monk Get More Focused Adjustments

Druid's Promise the Obscure modifies Werebear Mangle into four directional attacks with knockback and control immunity.

Blizzard says its cooldown is being reduced and its damage scaling is being simplified around maximum Life.

Budding Union is also changing, with Circle of Life healing less when only a single target occupies the area.

That pushes the ability slightly harder toward its intended group-support identity.

Monk's Mystic Allies receive more Life through Fate and Fortune.

Nest of Vipers will also allow nearby summons to benefit from Dragon's Strike rather than limiting the effect to the Monk.

Some conditional crowd-control damage is being removed, while baseline damage increases to compensate.

Wizard Beams Are Being Pulled Back

Wizard gets changes to Frostfield and Disintegrate.

Lissana's Sorrow will increase the Chill applied by Creeping Chill.

Searing Judgement is more complicated.

Disintegrate's beam distance will be reduced.

The maximum Burn stacks required to trigger its additional damage will increase, meaning the burst happens less often.

Blizzard says the burst damage itself is being increased to compensate.

Wizard will also remain immune to knockback while channeling.

So this is less “beam deleted” and more “beam asked to respect personal space.”

Players Immediately Asked Where the Other Four Classes Went

The first community reaction was predictable.

Where is Barbarian?

Where is Necromancer?

Where is Demon Hunter?

And what about Blood Knight?

One player directly asked whether Barbarian had simply been forgotten.

Others argued that Necromancer badly needs PvP attention, while Demon Hunter players and opponents are already debating current stealth and survivability builds.

Those complaints do not automatically mean Blizzard should change every class in every patch.

Sometimes the correct balance adjustment is no adjustment.

But announcing a competitive balance pass involving six out of ten classes inevitably makes the other four much more visible.

Bout of Realms Makes the Timing Much More Sensitive

Diablo Immortal's current Bout of Realms is already underway.

Preliminary matches run from August 18 through August 22, with the Finals scheduled from August 25 through August 29 and the Championship Match on August 31.

That makes the August 26 balance update especially interesting.

According to Blizzard's currently published schedule, the class changes arrive during the Finals window.

Teams may therefore enter the tournament using one version of a build and find themselves competing under different balance conditions later in the event.

Blizzard clearly understands that compositions take planning, which is precisely why it announced the adjustments early.

We have already seen how seriously Blizzard treats this format through previous Bout of Realms tournaments and their increasingly competitive team structures.

Changing class behavior around that environment is never going to be invisible.

These Numbers Are Not Final Yet

There is one very important caveat.

Blizzard explicitly says the descriptions, statistics and balance changes revealed on August 19 are not final.

They can still change before the patch goes live on August 26.

That means players should not dismantle entire builds, swap classes or begin writing memorial speeches for Measured Halves quite yet.

But the direction is clear.

Warlock loses some tracking and range.

Tempest gains shields and stronger channeling.

Crusader gets a more mobile Shield Charge.

Druid, Monk and Wizard receive targeted adjustments.

And four classes sit outside the balance list entirely.

For casual players, that means another round of build tinkering.

For Bout of Realms teams, it means spreadsheets.

Many, many spreadsheets.

Sources

Blizzard: Balance Patch Update / Bout of Realms Preparation — August 26

Blizzard: Rise to the Top in Bout of Realms

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Diablo 4 Player Runs Kurast Undercity 10+ Times for Primordial Dust — Gets Zero

Diablo 4 has many ways to tell you that your build is not finished yet.

Apparently one of them is sending you into Kurast Undercity more than ten times and giving you exactly zero of the crafting material you went there to farm.

A Diablo 4 player is reporting that Volatile Primordial Dust has stopped dropping for them in Kurast Undercity, despite repeatedly using Tributes designed to reward Horadric Cube materials.

The player says they completed more than ten runs while specifically trying to farm Volatile Primordial Dust for an amulet.

The result:

0 Volatile Primordial Dust.

That does not prove the material is currently bugged.

It does, however, add another uncomfortable data point to a crafting resource that players have already spent most of Season 14 complaining is far too scarce.

The Player Was Specifically Farming Cube Materials

This was not someone casually running Undercity and wondering why a random material never appeared.

The player says they deliberately used Horadric Cube Materials Tributes while farming.

The relevant Legendary Undercity option is the Greater Tribute of Ingenuity, which enhances the final reward with Horadric Cube materials.

That is exactly the sort of activity players have been recommending when someone asks how to farm Volatile Primordial Dust.

Community farming advice has repeatedly pointed toward Kurast Undercity with Cube-material Tributes as one of the better targeted methods.

Which makes running it ten or more times without seeing the material considerably more noticeable.

Volatile Primordial Dust Is Used for Transfiguration

Volatile Primordial Dust is one of the rarer Horadric Cube materials introduced with Lord of Hatred.

Its main purpose is Transfiguration.

That means it sits directly inside one of Diablo 4's most expensive endgame crafting loops.

You take an item you have already spent time building.

You spend a rare material.

You roll the dice.

And, as we have already seen with the player whose near-perfect amulet became locked without receiving a visible Transfiguration reward, the system is not particularly forgiving when something goes wrong.

The scarcity of Volatile Dust therefore matters far more than the loss of another miscellaneous crafting reagent.

Players can burn through substantial amounts of it while chasing the correct result.

This Material Was Already a Bottleneck

The new Undercity report arrives after weeks of complaints about Volatile Primordial Dust.

Back in July, we covered how the Volatile Dust grind was turning solo endgame crafting into a second job.

One player described spending three hours farming approximately 40 Dust and then consuming the entire supply in roughly ten minutes of crafting.

Other players said the Season 14 drop rate felt substantially worse than before.

A July forum discussion includes players saying they were running Material Reserve Nightmare Dungeons and Cube-material Tributes while still struggling to maintain a supply.

Another complaint posted in early August estimated a farming rate of only 7 to 20 Volatile Primordial Dust per hour.

So even if the new player's zero-drop streak turns out to be brutal RNG rather than a bug, it is happening inside a system where the resource economy was already under pressure.

Kurast Undercity Is Supposed to Be One of the Better Options

That is what makes this particular report interesting.

Players who run out of Volatile Dust are regularly directed toward:

• Kurast Undercity with Horadric Cube Material Tributes
• Material Reserve Nightmare Dungeons and Escalations
• Cube Spoils through War Plans
• Whisper rewards
• Elite farming

Even popular Diablo 4 farming guides recommend using an Undercity Tribute with Horadric Cube Materials when you need Cube resources quickly.

And Blizzard itself has previously fixed a tooltip problem involving Cube Dust, specifically noting that the tooltip did not properly indicate that the material could be obtained from Undercity activities.

In other words, Kurast Undercity absolutely belongs in this farming ecosystem.

Whether every individual Cube material is guaranteed on every run is another matter.

Zero Drops Does Not Automatically Mean Bugged

This distinction is important.

We currently have one fresh player report describing more than ten runs without Volatile Primordial Dust.

Blizzard has not confirmed a drop bug.

The Greater Tribute of Ingenuity promises Horadric Cube materials broadly. It does not appear to guarantee that every Cube material, including Volatile Primordial Dust, will appear on every run.

That leaves RNG as a completely plausible explanation.

Ten unlucky runs can happen.

Diablo has built an entire franchise around demonstrating this scientific principle.

But when players specifically target the activity recommended for Cube materials and repeatedly receive none of the material creating their crafting bottleneck, it is worth watching.

The Bigger Problem Is How Much Dust Transfiguration Can Consume

This is ultimately why players care.

If Volatile Primordial Dust were used once every few hours, a streak of bad drops would be annoying but manageable.

Transfiguration can consume it considerably faster.

Players chasing very specific endgame outcomes can make dozens of attempts.

One recent feedback thread describes the resource as the main limitation of the current Transfiguration system and argues that Dust should drop from far more endgame activities.

The complaint is not simply that good items should be easy to obtain.

It is that the crafting system encourages repeated experimentation while the material supply actively discourages it.

That creates a strange loop.

The Horadric Cube says:

Try again.

Your material tab says:

Absolutely not.

For Now, This Is One Report Worth Watching

We would not call Kurast Undercity broken based on this report alone.

There are too many players successfully obtaining Volatile Primordial Dust from Cube-focused activities for that conclusion.

But more than ten targeted runs for zero Dust is enough to raise the question, particularly after an entire season of complaints about the material's availability.

If other players begin reproducing the same sudden zero-drop behavior, then we may be looking at something more specific than Season 14's already unpopular drop rate.

Until then, the safest conclusion is simpler.

Diablo 4 has an endgame material that players desperately need for repeated crafting attempts.

One of the activities recommended for farming it just gave one player more than ten consecutive lessons in disappointment.

Sanctuary's crafting economy remains extremely efficient.

At consuming your materials.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Player report regarding Volatile Primordial Dust not dropping in Kurast Undercity

Diablo IV Forums: Volatile Primordial Dust Nerfed to the Ground

Diablo IV Forums: More Volatile Primordial Dust

Read More

Diablo 4 Says These Eternal Characters Are in Endgame — But War Plans Are Still Locked

Diablo 4 has found an impressively philosophical way to define the word “Endgame.”

Some Eternal characters are being displayed as Lord of Hatred (Endgame) on the Character Select screen.

There is just one problem.

They still cannot access parts of the endgame.

Players have been reporting the issue since shortly after Lord of Hatred launched, with older Eternal characters sometimes failing to inherit the correct campaign-completion state even after Lord of Hatred has been completed elsewhere on the account.

In one particularly clear example, a player says their Eternal characters have already skipped the campaign and Character Select explicitly shows them as being in Lord of Hatred's Endgame state.

Yet War Plans are unavailable.

Tyrael is missing from the War Plans table in Temis.

Several waypoints remain locked.

Endgame, apparently, is now more of a state of mind.

The Character Select Screen Says Everything Is Fine

The current problem is closely related to the Eternal campaign skip problem we recently covered, but this particular version is even stranger.

The affected characters are not simply being told to complete the campaign again.

According to the player report, Diablo 4 already recognizes them as being in:

Lord of Hatred (Endgame)

That should be the destination.

Blizzard's own Lord of Hatred documentation describes “Story Complete: Endgame” as the option available after completing the expansion campaign. Once unlocked, existing characters can also skip the campaign from Character Select instead of replaying the story.

The problem is that the label and the actual character state do not always appear to agree.

War Plans Simply Aren’t There

The most obvious symptom is War Plans.

War Plans are one of Lord of Hatred's central endgame systems. Once properly unlocked, players travel to Temis, use the Command Table and build chains of activities including Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, Infernal Hordes, the Pit, Undercity and boss content.

For the affected Eternal characters, that onboarding appears to be missing.

The player says Tyrael is not standing beside the War Plans table.

The table is effectively dead.

That creates a particularly nasty progression problem because War Plans are not just another optional side activity. They feed directly into Diablo 4's current endgame structure and Activity Trees.

And even when War Plans do unlock correctly, they have their own problems. We recently covered players completing every activity only to find their War Plan progression stuck at 9/10.

Some players cannot finish the board.

Others apparently cannot get the board in the first place.

Efficiency.

The Horadric Cube Has Been Caught in Similar Progression Problems

This is not the first time old Eternal characters have struggled to inherit Lord of Hatred unlocks correctly.

Back in May, players reported completing Lord of Hatred on one character and then discovering that older level 60 Eternal characters still could not use the campaign skip.

One PlayStation player specifically said they had completed Lord of Hatred on an Eternal Sorcerer but could not skip the campaign on two other Eternal characters.

The reason they cared was simple:

They wanted access to the Horadric Cube and War Plans without replaying the entire expansion campaign.

Another player in the same discussion reported that some Eternal characters received the Character Select campaign-sync option while others did not, despite all of them predating Lord of Hatred and being the same level.

That suggests this is not simply someone missing an obvious quest marker.

Finishing Lord of Hatred Is Supposed to Unlock the Skip

Blizzard's intended behavior is fairly clear.

Once Lord of Hatred has been completed, players can create a character using the Story Complete: Endgame starting state.

Blizzard also specifically says that previously created characters can skip the campaign directly from Character Select.

That matters because the affected characters are doing exactly what Blizzard's interface tells them to do.

The campaign is marked as skipped.

The game calls them Endgame characters.

And yet the world state appears to remain partially trapped somewhere before that point.

This Looks Like a Character-State Problem

Blizzard has not publicly confirmed the precise cause, so anything beyond the visible symptoms remains speculation.

But the reports look remarkably like Diablo 4 is failing to synchronize several different progression flags.

One flag tells Character Select:

This character is in Endgame.

Another apparently tells Temis:

Absolutely not.

That would also explain why players report a mixture of symptoms rather than one simple missing button.

Some cannot select the campaign skip.

Some can select it but still lack War Plans.

Some find waypoints locked.

Some do not see the expected endgame NPCs.

And some Eternal characters on the same account apparently work perfectly normally.

The Latest Patch Notes Don’t Mention a Fix

Diablo 4's latest listed live patch is 3.1.3 from August 12.

It includes several War Plans fixes, including a problem where teleporting to Infernal Hordes could fail on lower difficulties.

But Blizzard's patch notes do not mention repairing campaign-state synchronization for older Eternal characters.

That is important because these reports have now survived well beyond the immediate Lord of Hatred launch period.

This is not simply expansion-launch confusion from the first afternoon.

Players were reporting campaign-skip problems in May.

The “Endgame but no War Plans” report arrived in July.

And there is still no specifically documented fix in the current live notes.

Eternal Characters Are Exactly Where This Should Work Best

There is an extra irony here.

Eternal Realm exists partly so players can keep old characters alive indefinitely.

These are the characters people have spent seasons building, adjusting and preserving.

They are precisely the characters most likely to predate Lord of Hatred.

Forcing those characters into broken or inconsistent progression states defeats much of the point.

It is also why this problem is more serious than a missing quest icon.

Lord of Hatred made the Horadric Cube and War Plans fundamental parts of Diablo 4's modern endgame. If an old character cannot correctly transition into that state, a substantial portion of the expansion effectively disappears.

For Now, “Endgame” Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Endgame

There are community-suggested workarounds floating around, including changing difficulty, relogging and looking for missing onboarding quests.

We would not treat any of those as a confirmed fix.

The underlying issue appears inconsistent between characters, and Blizzard has not published an official workaround for this particular progression state.

So the safest description remains straightforward:

Some Diablo 4 Eternal characters are being marked as Lord of Hatred (Endgame) while still missing the systems that designation is supposed to unlock.

When the game's own Character Select screen says you have reached the endgame, expecting to find the endgame seems reasonably fair.

Sanctuary apparently requires additional paperwork.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: Eternal characters with no War Plan

Diablo IV Forums: Can't skip campaign after completion

Blizzard: Prepare for the Reckoning — Lord of Hatred Draws Near

Blizzard: Diablo IV Patch Notes

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Diablo 4 Switch 2 Leak Points to September 15 Release With Both Expansions

Diablo 4's long-rumored Nintendo Switch 2 version has suddenly become much harder to dismiss.

We no longer just have ratings-board sightings and vague suggestions that Blizzard is working on something.

A new report from Dealabs leaker billbil-kun now gives us a date.

A price.

A version name.

Expansion details.

And even the slightly depressing contents of the physical box.

According to the leak, Diablo 4 will launch on Nintendo Switch 2 on September 15, 2026 as the Age of Hatred Collection, including the base game, Vessel of Hatred and Lord of Hatred.

Blizzard has not officially announced the Switch 2 version yet.

But at this point, the demon is beginning to leave quite a lot of footprints.

The Reported Release Date Is September 15

Dealabs reports that Diablo 4 is scheduled to arrive on Nintendo Switch 2 on September 15.

The information comes from billbil-kun, whose leaks have repeatedly proven accurate across games, hardware and subscription announcements.

Video Games Chronicle has since reported the same new details, while stressing that the port remains officially unannounced.

The timing would be extremely interesting.

BlizzCon 2026 begins on September 12.

The leak claims pre-orders for the Switch 2 version are also planned to open on September 12.

Three days later:

Launch.

That does not exactly require Deckard Cain to interpret.

It Reportedly Includes Both Expansions

The Switch 2 release is reportedly called the Age of Hatred Collection.

That means Nintendo players would not be receiving a stripped-down version of Diablo 4 from 2023.

The package reportedly includes:

• Diablo IV
• Vessel of Hatred
• Lord of Hatred

That would put Switch 2 players directly into the current version of Diablo 4 rather than making them buy years of content separately before catching up.

And there is quite a lot to catch up on.

Lord of Hatred has transformed Diablo 4's endgame through systems such as War Plans, the Horadric Cube and newer progression structures.

Unfortunately, some of those systems have also created problems. We recently covered how players can finish every War Plan activity and still become stuck at Rank 9/10.

Welcome to Sanctuary.

Here is your handheld.

Here is your endgame bureaucracy.

The Price Is Reportedly $69.99

The leak lists the Switch 2 edition at:

• $69.99
• €69.99
• £62.99

Given that the package reportedly includes both expansions, this would position the Switch 2 release as the current complete Diablo 4 bundle rather than a budget port of the base game.

That distinction matters because Lord of Hatred is no longer simply optional side content sitting beside the original campaign.

Much of Diablo 4's current progression structure assumes players are engaging with the expansion systems.

We have seen that especially clearly with older characters, where some Eternal characters are still having trouble accessing the campaign skip and the progression state required for newer endgame content.

A fresh Switch 2 account would presumably begin with a much cleaner path.

Presumably.

This is Diablo.

There Is a Physical Edition — Sort Of

Collectors should probably lower their expectations before making shelf space.

The leak says Diablo 4 will receive a retail boxed release for Switch 2.

But it reportedly will not contain a cartridge.

It will not even use Nintendo's Game-Key Card format.

Instead, the box is said to contain a download code.

So technically:

Physical box.

Digital game.

Modern preservation remains a delightful subject.

Blizzard Has Already Said the Hardware Isn’t the Problem

A Switch 2 version has always made technical sense.

Former Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson said back in 2025 that Switch 2 had the performance required to run Diablo 4.

His concern was not raw hardware.

It was live-service functionality on a device people regularly play handheld and away from a permanent internet connection.

That is the more interesting challenge.

Diablo 4 remains an always-online game.

Putting it on a handheld platform does not suddenly turn it into Diablo III's wonderfully portable offline experience.

If the port is real, Blizzard will need to make that relationship extremely clear.

This Has Been Building for Months

The September leak does not appear from nowhere.

Earlier ratings-board activity already suggested Diablo IV and Lord of Hatred were being prepared for Nintendo Switch 2.

At the time, ratings alone were not enough to tell us whether the project would actually launch, when it might appear or what would be included.

The new leak fills in most of those blanks.

September 15.

Age of Hatred Collection.

Both expansions.

$69.99.

Code in a box.

There are only so many details you can add before a rumor begins wearing launch-day clothes.

BlizzCon Looks Like the Obvious Reveal

If the reported September 12 pre-order date is correct, BlizzCon is the obvious candidate for an official announcement.

The event begins that same day.

A first-day Switch 2 reveal followed by immediate pre-orders and a September 15 launch would give Blizzard an extremely tidy announcement cycle.

There is another possibility.

Gamescom Opening Night Live takes place on August 25, and Blizzard has repeatedly used Gamescom to show major Diablo and Warcraft material.

That could allow Blizzard to reveal the port earlier and save BlizzCon for something larger.

And Blizzard certainly has other Diablo 4 material to discuss.

Season 15 is already becoming one of the more substantial system updates we have seen recently. The PTR tested Soul Splinters, which may have been one of its strongest new ideas, alongside Challenge Dungeons, Legacy Uniques and Rebirth.

Blizzard also deliberately held some Season 15 content back from the PTR, something we discussed while asking whether public testing is solving Diablo 4's problems or spoiling too much before launch.

BlizzCon still has secrets left.

A Switch 2 Launch Could Be Excellent Timing for Diablo 4

A portable Diablo 4 has obvious appeal.

Diablo III was a remarkably natural fit for the original Switch.

Diablo II: Resurrected followed.

Diablo 4 is the missing piece.

And launching it as a complete collection after Lord of Hatred rather than rushing the base game onto Nintendo hardware years earlier may actually work in its favor.

Switch 2 players would arrive after years of itemization revisions, endgame rebuilds and quality-of-life improvements.

Even Season 15 is already preparing another overhaul of high-end gearing, including the new direction for Mythic crafting.

They may be arriving late.

They may also be arriving at a considerably better version of the game.

Still a Leak Until Blizzard Says Otherwise

The amount of detail is convincing.

The previous ratings add weight.

billbil-kun has an excellent history with this kind of information.

And September 15 fits neatly around BlizzCon.

None of that makes this official.

Blizzard has not announced Diablo 4 for Nintendo Switch 2.

Nintendo has not listed it for September 15.

There is currently no official Switch 2 store page we can point you toward and say:

There.

The demon lives here now.

But compared with the vague rumors from earlier this year, we now have something much more specific.

If the leak is correct, Diablo 4 is less than a month away from becoming portable.

Provided, of course, you also bring an internet connection.

Sources

Dealabs: Diablo IV Switch 2 Release Date, Price and Physical Edition Report

Video Games Chronicle: New Information on Switch 2 Diablo 4 Port

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Diablo 2’s PS5 Offline Stutter May Finally Be Fixed After Six Months

Diablo II: Resurrected players on PlayStation may finally be able to identify items without the game briefly reconsidering its existence.

For roughly six months, PS4 and PS5 players have reported an irritating offline hitch introduced around the Reign of the Warlock 3.0 update.

Talk to Deckard Cain.

Freeze.

Use the Horadric Cube.

Freeze.

Enter a portal.

Freeze.

Buy something from a vendor.

You get the idea.

Now, following the August 18 Patch 3.3 rollout, several of the players who spent months documenting the issue say the stutter appears to be finally fixed.

The Problem Started With the Reign of the Warlock Update

The first major PlayStation bug reports appeared on February 12, immediately after Diablo II: Resurrected's 3.0 update.

Players on both the native PS5 version and the PS4 version running through backward compatibility reported short freezes while playing completely offline.

One of the easiest ways to reproduce the problem was having Deckard Cain identify multiple items.

The game would briefly freeze for roughly 0.2 to 0.3 seconds.

But Cain was only the beginning.

Players eventually reproduced similar hitches while entering portals, changing areas, leveling up, using the Cube, interacting with vendors and during ordinary gameplay.

Most importantly, players reported the issue even on characters that did not own or use Reign of the Warlock content.

The expansion may have arrived with the update.

The hitching apparently came free.

Autosaves and Transactions Became the Main Suspect

Over the following months, the PlayStation community became impressively forensic about the problem.

One player recorded the Cain identification freeze frame by frame and spotted a brief message appearing during the hitch:

Waiting For Confirmation Of Transaction.

That led players to suspect the visible Cain freeze was only one symptom of a broader slowdown involving transactions, validation or game-state saving.

Later testing seemed to support that theory.

Players reported the same hitch around:

• Cain identification
• Manual item identification
• Horadric Cube transmutation
• Moving items into the Cube
• Vendor purchases and sales
• Gambling
• Entering portals
• Area transitions
• Autosaves
• Some item drops and gameplay events

That is unfortunately most of Diablo II.

Gambling Made the Problem Almost Comical

By August, players had found an especially effective demonstration.

Gambling.

Normally, players can rapidly buy items from the gambling screen and fill an inventory in seconds.

With the PlayStation hitching problem, each purchase could briefly lock the game before the next input registered.

Repeated purchases made the stutter occur again and again, turning an ordinary gambling session into a sequence of tiny pauses.

The same thing reportedly happened while repeatedly cubing gems.

Insert three gems.

Transmute.

Hitch.

Repeat.

The Horadric Cube already has enough opportunities to disappoint you without requiring a loading break between them.

The Problem Was Especially Uncomfortable in Hardcore

A menu hitch is annoying.

A gameplay hitch is potentially lethal.

Several players specifically stopped playing Hardcore offline characters because stalls could also happen during combat, immediately after entering an area or around portal transitions.

A fraction of a second is usually irrelevant.

In Diablo II Hardcore, a fraction of a second standing beside the wrong pack can become an obituary.

That is why the issue continued generating console bug reports long after smaller visual glitches would normally have been forgotten.

Several Earlier Updates Helped, but Didn’t Finish the Job

Players reported improvements during the months after launch, but the underlying hitch never completely disappeared.

In March, some players felt freezes had become shorter.

Others still reproduced them consistently.

Reports continued through April, May, June and July.

Even in August, PlayStation players were still opening new threads about offline hitching, freezing and autosave-related stalls.

The issue had effectively survived multiple patches and most of Reign of the Warlock's first six months.

Then Patch 3.3 Arrived

Patch 3.3 began rolling out on August 18 as part of the run-up to Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15.

Blizzard's published notes do not contain a line saying:

Fixed the six-month PlayStation offline hitch.

Instead, the Bug Fixes section simply begins with “Various stability and performance improvements.”

Apparently one of those improvements may have been doing quite a lot of work.

Players Immediately Started Stress-Testing It

One of the players who had spent months documenting the problem downloaded the new patch on August 18 and began testing the old triggers in real time.

Enter the Tristram portal.

No hitch.

Return to town and ask Cain to identify items.

Instant.

Use the Horadric Cube.

No chop.

Visit Gheed.

No obvious delay.

The player concluded that the issue finally appeared to be resolved.

Another PS5 player confirmed the result early on August 19.

A separate PS4 Slim player also reported no freezes after updating.

And another long-time reporter said Cain identification, Cube stuttering and ordinary gameplay hitching all appeared fixed.

This Is More Than One Happy PS5 Owner

That distinction matters.

If one person said their game suddenly felt smoother, we would not have much of a story.

But several people who had previously reproduced the problem across PS4, PS5 and PS5 Pro are now independently reporting that their known triggers no longer cause the same stalls.

That is strong community evidence that something meaningful changed in the new patch.

It is still not the same thing as Blizzard officially confirming the precise fix.

Patch 3.3 Is Turning Out to Be More Interesting Than Expected

The console fix is not the only seemingly small Patch 3.3 change producing a much larger practical effect.

We have already covered how a Miasma Chain collision fix appears to have made Abyss Warlock dramatically stronger in early player testing.

The patch also reduces Worldstone Shard and Ancient Statue drop rates, while improving Rare-or-better drops from higher Herald tiers.

It makes Latent Sunder Charms harder to obtain through Magic Find.

And Season 15 will bring eight older Ladder-only items into Non-Ladder.

Patch 3.3 looked fairly small.

Its consequences are proving considerably larger.

Season 15 Could Arrive With PlayStation in Much Better Shape

The timing is excellent.

Ladder Season 15 starts August 21 at 5 p.m. PDT, with European players joining on August 22 at 2 a.m. CEST.

That gives PlayStation players a few days to test the new patch before deciding whether they trust another Hardcore character with it.

If the early reports hold up, console players may finally be entering a new Ladder without the constant fear that talking to Deckard Cain will briefly freeze the universe.

We Should Still Call This “Appears Fixed” for Now

There is one final caveat.

Blizzard has not explicitly identified the PlayStation offline hitch in the Patch 3.3 notes.

The company only lists general stability and performance improvements.

So we cannot say with absolute certainty which technical change solved the problem, or whether every edge case on every PlayStation configuration has disappeared.

But this is the strongest evidence players have had in six months.

The same people who were reproducing Cain freezes, gambling delays, Cube stalls and portal hitches days ago are now trying those same actions and reporting smooth gameplay.

Six months.

Dozens of reports.

Multiple patches.

And finally, Deckard Cain may once again identify your inventory without requiring Diablo II to stop and think about it first.

Sources

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS5 Offline Stuttering/Hitching Has Ruined My Favorite Game

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS4/PS5 Offline Hitching — Gambling Exposes Severity

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: PS5 & PS4 Console — Freeze When Deckard Cain Identifies Items

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon / Patch 3.3 Notes

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Diablo Immortal Players Say Normal Gems Are Disappearing During Salvage and Quick Craft

There are few things in Diablo Immortal more satisfying than finally ranking up a Normal Gem.

There are also few things less satisfying than watching the gems required for that upgrade disappear without producing anything.

Players are now reporting two separate cases where valuable Normal Gems apparently vanished during completely ordinary inventory actions.

One involved salvaging a Set item.

The other involved using Quick Craft at the Jeweler.

Blizzard has not confirmed that the two incidents share the same cause, or even that they are manifestations of the same bug.

But if you are sitting on high-rank Normal Gems, this may be a good week to click things slightly more carefully than usual.

A Rank 8 Topaz Disappeared After Salvaging a Set Item

The first report appeared on August 16.

A player had just reached Paragon 1600 and was replacing some Inferno XIII Set equipment.

They salvaged a Restitution glove at the Blacksmith and converted it into a Wisp.

Afterward, one of the Rank 8 Topaz gems associated with their equipment was gone.

The player says they checked their inventory, stash and other equipped items and could not find it anywhere.

That is a particularly painful disappearance because high-rank Normal Gems represent a considerable amount of accumulated lower-rank gems.

The player was also close to having enough resources for another Rank 9 Topaz.

Instead, one of the Rank 8 building blocks apparently entered the Void.

Possibly the most expensive inventory tab in Sanctuary.

Then 81 Aquamarines Disappeared During Quick Craft

A day later, another player added a completely different Normal Gem problem.

They attempted to use Quick Craft at the Jeweler to turn 81 Rank 1 Aquamarines into a Rank 5 Aquamarine.

According to the report, all 81 gems disappeared from the inventory.

No Rank 5 Aquamarine appeared in their place.

The player later created a dedicated bug report and provided their device information, character UID and exact number of missing gems.

They also noted that at least some of the Aquamarines had effectively been acquired using paid services, making the loss considerably more than an inconvenience.

The Player Thinks Mixed Bound and Unbound Gems May Matter

The Quick Craft report became more interesting after other forum users tried to understand the sequence.

The affected player says they had previously crafted Rank 3 and Rank 4 gems without any problems.

The failure happened specifically while attempting Rank 5.

They later suggested a possible reproduction method:

• Have exactly 81 Rank 1 gems.
• Use a mixture of bound and unbound gems.
• Select Rank 5 at the Jeweler.
• Use Quick Craft.

According to the player, that is the situation developers should test.

Blizzard has not confirmed that this sequence reproduces the problem, so players should treat it as community troubleshooting rather than an established technical explanation.

These May Be Two Completely Different Bugs

It would be tempting to declare that Diablo Immortal has one giant Normal Gem deletion bug.

We do not have enough evidence for that.

The Topaz disappeared after Set-item salvage.

The Aquamarines disappeared during crafting.

Those are entirely different systems.

The only obvious connection is the end result:

Player had gems.

Player performed a normal game action.

Player no longer had gems.

That is enough reason to pay attention, but not enough to claim a shared technical cause.

Normal Gems Have Disappeared Before

There is some uncomfortable history here.

In May 2025, another Diablo Immortal player reported losing a Rank 7 Citrine while switching equipment and Armory loadouts.

The same player said they had previously lost two Rank 7 Sapphires and managed to recover those through an older saved Armory configuration.

They suspected another gem may have disappeared when a Set item was salvaged and the socketed gem failed to return correctly.

That older thread also linked to previous reports involving Normal Gems disappearing during Armory and gear-switching sequences.

Again, there is no evidence that the 2025 cases and this week's incidents have the same underlying cause.

But Normal Gems apparently finding creative exits from the inventory is not an entirely new complaint.

That Matters Because Normal Gems Are Painfully Expensive to Replace

Normal Gems are not decorative pocket gravel.

High-rank gems represent enormous quantities of lower-rank gems accumulated through regular play, events, the Marketplace and other sources.

Players have repeatedly complained that Normal Gem progression is one of Diablo Immortal's harder long-term systems to catch up on, particularly for newer accounts.

That is why losing a Rank 8 gem feels considerably worse than accidentally salvaging another random Legendary shoulder.

One can be replaced after some farming.

The other represents a small geological era.

Diablo Immortal Has Had a Rough August for Expensive Items

The Normal Gem reports arrive during an awkward run of inventory and premium-system problems.

We just covered another player who says 6,000 Eternal Orbs were spent on an unusable Celestial Serpents cosmetic upgrade.

That followed the earlier 4,500-Orb Fanal of Hope purchase that Blizzard is investigating.

Another player says the Temptation's End dye system still would not change colors after a 10,960-Orb setup.

And underneath all of this, players are still adapting to the Inferno XIV Loyalty Point conversion and new Essence progression cycle.

None of those problems necessarily share a cause.

But August has been an unusually educational month for the importance of checking what happened after pressing Confirm.

For Now, Manual Crafting May Be the Safer Option

There is no confirmed Blizzard workaround for either new Normal Gem report.

Still, players concerned about losing expensive gems may want to take a few temporary precautions until the situation becomes clearer.

If you are salvaging Set equipment containing valuable Normal Gems, verify where those gems are before and after the salvage.

If you are combining a large pile of Rank 1 gems, particularly a mixture of bound and unbound gems, manually ranking them in smaller steps may be worth considering instead of immediately using Quick Craft to Rank 5.

And screenshots of your inventory before performing expensive operations are rarely a terrible idea when reporting a potential item-loss bug.

That advice is precautionary.

It is not confirmation that either process is universally unsafe.

Gems Should Become Bigger Gems, Not No Gems

Diablo Immortal is built around upgrading things.

Equipment becomes better equipment.

Essences become builds.

Small gems become larger gems.

That last progression step becomes considerably less attractive when 81 Aquamarines apparently become air.

For now, we have two current reports involving two different systems and some older history suggesting Normal Gem disappearances have happened before.

What we do not yet have is a Blizzard explanation.

Until then, perhaps treat that Quick Craft button with the respect normally reserved for a suspicious Horadric Cube.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: Normal Gems Disappeared After Salvaging Set Item

Diablo Immortal Forums: Aquamarine Disappeared After Quick Craft at Jeweler

Diablo Immortal Forums: Normal Gem Gone

Read More

Another Diablo Immortal Player Bought an Unusable Cosmetic — This One Cost 6,000 Orbs

Diablo Immortal has another expensive cosmetic problem.

And this time the number is even larger.

A player says they spent 6,000 Eternal Orbs on an upgraded Celestial Serpents cosmetic after the option appeared in-game.

After completing the purchase, they say they received no cosmetic or anything else they could actually use.

The report was filed on August 19 and directly references the recent case where another Diablo Immortal player spent 4,500 Eternal Orbs on a Fanal of Hope enhancement that required a base cosmetic they did not own.

One case can be an unfortunate edge case.

Two expensive cosmetic reports within days of each other start making the purchase logic considerably more interesting.

The Player Spent 6,000 Orbs on Celestial Serpents

The new report is remarkably short and direct.

The player says Diablo Immortal showed them the option to purchase the Celestial Serpents upgraded cosmetic for 6,000 Eternal Orbs.

They bought it.

Then nothing useful appeared.

The player is using an iPad and filed the issue under Diablo Immortal's iOS Bug Report section.

At the time of writing, Blizzard has not publicly responded to this specific 6,000-Orb report.

Celestial Serpents Has a Separate Upgrade System

The important context comes from Blizzard's original Celestial Serpents announcement.

The cosmetic debuted through the Lunar New Year Phantom Market in January 2025 and included an optional upgrade system called Tempering & Refining.

Tempering changes the appearance of the gilded serpents and alters the color of Primary Attacks.

Polishing adds a special finisher animation when killing Elites or bosses.

But Blizzard's wording contains a particularly important condition:

The Celestial Serpents cosmetic must already be unlocked before players can spend Eternal Orbs to Temper and Polish it.

That makes the new report difficult to dismiss as someone simply misunderstanding what an upgrade does.

If a player does not meet the requirement, the more important question becomes why the 6,000-Orb purchase option appeared at all.

We Don’t Yet Know Whether the Player Owns the Base Cosmetic

There is an important difference between this report and the earlier Fanal of Hope case.

The new player has not yet explained whether they already own the Celestial Serpents base cosmetic, a portal or another component from the original set.

So we cannot say the exact same bug has happened again.

The failure could involve account ownership detection.

It could involve delivery of the upgraded cosmetic.

It could involve another problem entirely.

Right now, all we know is that the game accepted 6,000 Eternal Orbs and the player says nothing usable arrived.

That is enough to warrant investigation.

Not enough to diagnose the patient.

The Player Links Directly to the 4,500-Orb Case

What makes the timing particularly awkward is that the new player explicitly connects their experience with the 4,500-Orb Fanal of Hope case we covered last week.

In that earlier report, a player purchased a cosmetic enhancement believing they were buying usable cosmetic content.

They later discovered that the purchase only modified the Fanal of Hope base armor cosmetic.

They did not own that armor.

Worse, the base cosmetic was no longer obtainable.

The player therefore had 4,500 Orbs tied up in an upgrade for something they could not currently acquire.

Blizzard Is Already Investigating the Earlier Case

The previous story eventually reached Blizzard's development team.

A Blizzard representative responded publicly on August 12 and said the team was investigating the bug and would communicate what steps it planned to take.

That was significant because Customer Support had previously told the player it could not reverse the purchase, refund the Orbs or provide another form of compensation.

The new 6,000-Orb reporter had actually already appeared in that older thread on August 18, saying they had encountered the same general type of problem and had not heard back regarding their support ticket.

Less than a day later, they created a dedicated Celestial Serpents bug report.

This Makes Purchase Validation More Important

We still do not know whether both cases have the same technical cause.

But they raise the same basic design question.

Should Diablo Immortal allow an account to purchase an expensive cosmetic enhancement unless the game has verified that the enhancement will actually be usable?

The cleanest version of the system would be boring.

Own the base cosmetic?

Purchase button available.

Do not own it?

Purchase button disabled.

That would eliminate a considerable amount of customer-support archaeology.

Premium Cosmetic Systems Are Becoming More Complicated

The issue is particularly relevant because Diablo Immortal has recently been expanding cosmetic customization aggressively.

We recently covered the new Temptation's End dye customization system, which costs 4,500 Orbs just to unlock.

Then another player reported that their full Temptation's End dye setup still refused to change colors after they had spent 10,960 Orbs.

Now we have Celestial Serpents and another 6,000-Orb purchase dispute.

None of those reports proves that Diablo Immortal's entire cosmetic system is broken.

But the more layers Blizzard adds to premium cosmetics, the more important it becomes that ownership requirements, upgrade dependencies and purchase results are absolutely clear.

6,000 Orbs Should Probably Produce Something

There is no Blizzard response on the new Celestial Serpents report yet.

There is also not enough information to say the player definitely encountered the same ownership bug as the Fanal of Hope buyer.

For now, this remains one newly documented case.

But it arrives while Blizzard is already investigating another expensive unusable-cosmetic purchase.

That makes it worth watching.

Because premium cosmetic systems can be complicated.

Temper.

Polish.

Refine.

Upgrade.

Change colors.

Add finishers.

Fine.

But after 6,000 Eternal Orbs leave the account, the next step should probably not be:

Open a bug report.

Sources

Diablo Immortal Forums: 6000 Eternal Orbs Spent on Unusable Cosmetic

Diablo Immortal Forums: 4,500 Eternal Orbs Spent on Unusable Cosmetic

Blizzard Entertainment: A Gilded Dawn — Tong Shi's Renewal

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Diablo 4 Players Are Finishing Their Entire War Plan — Then Getting Stuck at 9/10

Diablo 4's War Plans are supposed to reward you for completing endgame activities.

Some players have discovered a slightly less satisfying final objective.

Finish everything.

Then stare at 9/10 forever.

A long-running Diablo IV bug report describes War Plans becoming permanently stuck one level short of completion even after every available activity on the board has been maxed out.

The problem was first reported in June and is still receiving fresh reports on August 19.

For affected players, the missing rank means they cannot unlock the final War Plan reward despite apparently having nothing left to complete.

Every Activity Is Finished, But the War Plan Still Wants One More

The original report came from a Barbarian player on the Asia servers.

They completed every activity shown on the right side of the War Plan tree.

The activities were done.

The points were spent.

But the overall War Plan remained at Rank 9/10.

The interface still said another activity or skill point was required to reach the final rank.

There was only one minor problem.

There were no activities left.

The player tried restarting Diablo 4, restarting Battle.net, verifying the game files and logging out and back in.

Nothing changed.

Yes, War Plans Really Can Reach 10/10

One of the first questions in the bug thread was whether 9/10 might simply be the intended maximum because War Plans begin at Rank 0.

Other players quickly ruled that out.

War Plans can reach 10/10, and the UI continues showing unfinished progression after Rank 9 for affected players.

Later reports are even more explicit.

One player finished the entire War Plan and received the associated completion achievement, but the board itself remained at 9/10.

Another reported every activity sitting at 7/7 while the War Plan remained one rank short.

Achievement complete.

Activities complete.

War Plan apparently unconvinced.

Players Think Double Rank-Ups May Be Losing a Point

The most interesting community theory appeared after players began comparing how their War Plans progressed.

Several suspect the bug happens when an activity gains two ranks at once around the same time the overall War Plan should gain a level.

One player suggested that doing two Nightmare Dungeon Escalations or two Greater Helltide upgrades together may cause the system to count only one of the activity ranks.

A later player described what appears to be the same problem in more detail.

According to their testing, if an activity double-ranks while the War Plan itself is close to leveling, one activity rank may fail to count toward the overall total.

Nothing looks obviously broken at the time.

The problem only becomes unavoidable weeks later, when every activity is maxed and the missing point can no longer be earned.

That explanation has not been confirmed by Blizzard.

But it would explain why the bug feels like it appears at the end even though the actual mistake may have happened much earlier.

Another Theory Points to the First Activity Rank

There is not complete agreement on the cause.

Another player testing a fresh character noticed that the first rank gained in one activity tree appeared not to contribute an expected point.

So the community currently has at least two possible explanations:

• A double activity rank-up causes one point to be skipped.
• An early activity rank sometimes fails to count correctly.

Neither theory has received official confirmation.

What players do agree on is the outcome.

Eventually the board reaches a state where everything is finished but the numbers no longer add up.

The Bug Is Still Happening on August 19

The original thread did not disappear after June.

Players reported the same problem throughout July and August.

On August 3, one player said they had finally maxed their War Plan after several weeks of progression and ended up permanently one point short.

More reports followed on August 11.

And early on August 19, another Barbarian player confirmed the same issue again.

Interestingly, that player said their Warlock did not have the problem.

They wondered whether the difference might relate to one character starting Seasonal while the Barbarian began on Eternal.

That is only speculation, but it adds another variable worth investigating.

War Plans Have Already Needed Plenty of Fixes

This is not Diablo 4's first argument with the War Plan system.

Blizzard has already fixed multiple problems involving War Plan progression, boss spawns, activity tracking and rewards since Lord of Hatred launched.

We previously covered an Infernal Hordes War Plan bug that could completely block progression, which Blizzard later addressed.

We have also been following the Ultimate Nemesis party loot problem, where groups report completing the final encounter only for some players to receive no proper reward.

Blizzard's official patch notes include numerous War Plan fixes, from Nemesis Lairs failing to trigger to activity icons displaying incorrectly and campaign states being evaluated inconsistently between party members.

The system is clearly complicated.

Unfortunately, Rank 9 apparently still knows how to count to ten about as well as a Fallen.

This Is Another Progression Bug With No Way Forward

The reason this one matters is not simply that the UI displays the wrong number.

The final rewards remain locked.

There is no additional activity to grind.

Reassigning points reportedly does not solve it.

Restarting does not solve it.

And because every activity is already at maximum rank, the player has no obvious way to generate another progression event and force the missing point to appear.

That puts it in the same unpleasant category as several progression issues we have covered recently.

Some Eternal characters still cannot access the campaign skip they should have unlocked.

Players can become soft-locked during the Secret Cow Level quest despite completing the required steps.

And even 65/65 Skovos exploration can leave the Amazonian Charge mount locked for some accounts.

The common theme is particularly frustrating:

The player has already done the work.

The game just has not finished counting it.

Blizzard Has Not Announced a Specific Fix Yet

Blizzard's current patch notes contain plenty of War Plan fixes, but we have not found a published correction specifically addressing the 9/10 progression issue.

The main bug thread is also still active today.

That does not mean Blizzard is not investigating it.

Bug reports can be tracked internally without receiving a public developer response.

But from the player's perspective, there is currently no confirmed fix or reliable workaround.

Weeks of Grinding Should Probably Add Up to Ten

War Plans were introduced with Lord of Hatred as a way to give Diablo 4's endgame more structure, allowing players to customize and progress through chains of activities after finishing the expansion campaign.

That structure only works if the progression system remembers all the progression.

Players reporting this bug are not asking for free levels.

They are not asking Blizzard to reduce the grind.

They have already finished the grind.

They would simply like:

Seven out of seven.

Plus seven out of seven.

Plus everything else completed.

To eventually equal ten out of ten.

Sanctuary has more complicated mathematics than that.

This should not be one of them.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: War Plans Level Stuck at 9/10 — Missing Skill Point After Completing All Activities

Blizzard Entertainment: Prepare for the Reckoning — Lord of Hatred Draws Near

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo IV Patch Notes

Read More

Diablo 2 Patch 3.3 Fixed One Warlock Bug — Players Say It Made Abyss Ridiculously Strong

Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 3.3 contains one very innocent-looking Warlock bug fix.

Miasma Chain no longer collides with friendly and neutral units.

That is it.

No giant damage multiplier.

No doubled skill coefficient.

No developer note announcing that Hell Diablo should immediately begin updating his will.

And yet, less than a day after Patch 3.3 went live, Warlock players are already reporting that the fix may have given the Abyss Warlock a much larger practical damage boost than anyone expected.

Miasma Chain Was Hitting Things It Wasn’t Supposed To

Blizzard's official Patch 3.3 notes describe the change very simply:

Miasma Chain had missile collision with friendly and neutral units. That has now been fixed.

On paper, this is quality-of-life.

Miasma Chain projectiles should reach enemies instead of colliding with things that are not actually trying to kill you.

In practice, however, Miasma Chain is one of the main single-target damage tools in Abyss Warlock builds.

And if those chains are suddenly reaching bosses more reliably, the difference can be much larger than the patch note makes it sound.

Players Say Hell Diablo Is Melting

The first post-Patch 3.3 testing is already raising eyebrows.

One player on Blizzard's forums described the new Abyss Warlock performance as so overwhelming that it becomes difficult to consider starting Season 15 with another character.

Another player tested the build against Hell Diablo and reported that the boss went down extremely quickly after stacking a large number of Miasma Chains around his spawn point.

The important detail is the gear.

The player described using relatively inexpensive equipment with only around +5 total skills and no skill Grand Charms.

That is hardly the sort of setup where Diablo should evaporate because somebody looked at him aggressively.

This Is Really a Miasma Chain Story

Calling this an “Abyss buff” is slightly misleading.

Blizzard did not actually buff Abyss in Patch 3.3.

The change affects Miasma Chain.

But Abyss Warlocks already commonly use Miasma Chain as part of the same build, particularly against bosses and tougher targets.

That relationship was obvious even before Patch 3.3.

Earlier Hardcore testing from Season 14 described Abyss as excellent AoE damage and crowd control, while Miasma Chain became the real heavy hitter against bosses and enemies that survived the initial Abyss damage.

So if Patch 3.3 has substantially improved Miasma Chain's ability to connect with a target, the entire Abyss package benefits.

The skill did not become stronger mathematically.

It simply became better at actually delivering the mathematics to Diablo's face.

Abyss Was Already Very Strong

This is the other reason the early reports matter.

Abyss was hardly waiting for Blizzard to rescue it.

Players were already calling it one of the strongest Warlock leveling tools during Season 14 because it combines several unusually useful properties:

• Strong area damage
• Magic damage, avoiding many common immunities
• Large-area crowd control
• Continued scaling through synergies
• Safe off-screen targeting

One Hardcore player documented beating Hell Baal at level 78 with modest equipment while praising Abyss for handling dangerous enemies such as Gloams and Dolls.

That makes Patch 3.3 potentially dangerous from a balance perspective.

You are not fixing the broken steering on a weak build.

You may be fixing the broken steering on something that was already driving extremely fast.

Season 15 Starts in Just a Few Days

The timing could hardly be better for build experimentation.

Patch 3.3 is already live, but the actual Diablo II: Resurrected Season 15 Ladder does not begin until August 21, or early August 22 for European players.

That gives the community a few days to test Abyss and Miasma Chain before everyone begins again from level one.

And suddenly the Warlock starter question becomes much more interesting.

If this performance survives deeper testing, Abyss could become one of the obvious early Season 15 choices.

Patch 3.3 Is Already Changing the Season 15 Meta

The Miasma Chain fix is only one part of a surprisingly consequential patch.

We have already covered how Patch 3.3 makes Sunder Charms harder to obtain, while also changing how Magic Find interacts with some drops.

Blizzard is also reducing Worldstone Shard and Ancient Statue drop rates, which will affect how players approach the Reign of the Warlock endgame.

At the same time, eight older Ladder-only items are moving into Non-Ladder, while the newly adjusted Season 15 items remain part of the fresh Ladder economy.

Blizzard even changed Manald Heal from Faster Run/Walk to Faster Cast Rate shortly before the patch arrived.

Season 15 looked relatively modest on paper.

The details are doing quite a lot of work.

Warlock Has Already Changed Diablo II More Than Expected

When Reign of the Warlock arrived, adding an entirely new class to Diablo II was already a fairly extraordinary event.

The class has since become deeply connected to the game's expanded endgame, including Terror Zones, Heralds and the Colossal Ancients pinnacle encounter.

Patch 3.3 now shows how even tiny mechanical fixes can change that ecosystem.

A projectile collision bug sounds boring.

Until removing it allows twenty poisonous chains to stop colliding with somebody's goat and start colliding with Diablo.

Don’t Call Abyss Broken Yet

There is still a very important caveat.

These are early community tests.

Blizzard has not said Abyss Warlock is overpowered after Patch 3.3.

We do not yet have large-scale Season 15 performance data, fully optimized comparisons or enough testing across player counts and endgame encounters to declare a definitive new meta.

Pre-casting large numbers of Miasma Chains at a known boss spawn is also an unusually favorable scenario for the skill.

Hell Diablo standing patiently where twenty chains are waiting for him is not necessarily representative of every fight in Diablo II.

It is, however, representative of a very bad morning for Diablo.

One Bug Fix May Have Changed the Best Season 15 Starter Conversation

The interesting part is that nobody needed a giant Warlock balance patch to create this discussion.

Blizzard fixed one collision problem.

Miasma Chain started behaving more like players expected it to behave.

And suddenly the community is asking whether one of the strongest Warlock builds just became dramatically better.

That is exactly the sort of interaction worth watching before Ladder Season 15 begins.

If the current results hold up, players may remember Patch 3.3 less for its item tweaks and drop-rate changes than for one wonderfully understated line buried under Bug Fixes.

Fixed an issue where Miasma Chain had missile collision on neutral and friendly units.

Diablo may eventually request that Blizzard puts the bug back.

Sources

Blizzard Entertainment: Diablo II: Resurrected Ladder Season 15 Coming Soon

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: 3.3 Abyss Warlock Has Become Too Strong

Diablo II: Resurrected Forums: Abyss Warlock After Beating Hell Baal in Hardcore

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Diablo Immortal Player Says a 10,960-Orb Dye Setup Won’t Actually Change Colors

Diablo Immortal recently added proper dye customization to Temptation’s End.

One player says they have now discovered an unfortunate limitation.

The colors refuse to change.

A new Android bug report says the player unlocked every available dye option for the Temptation’s End cosmetic, including the variable color controls, only to find that the outfit continues displaying its default appearance regardless of which colors are selected.

The player estimates the complete dye setup cost 10,960 Eternal Orbs for that cosmetic.

That is a great deal of premium currency for a color picker currently behaving like a decorative button.

Blizzard Added Temptation’s End Dyeing on August 12

The dye system arrived with Diablo Immortal’s August 12 update.

Blizzard officially added color customization for both Temptation’s End and the Temptation’s End Collector’s Edition, allowing players to unlock expanded color options for 4,500 Eternal Orbs.

We covered that initial price in our look at Diablo Immortal’s new 4,500-Orb dye customization system.

That 4,500-Orb figure is the feature unlock Blizzard advertises.

The player behind the new bug report says continuing to unlock the full range of dye options, including the variable color bar, brought the total to 10,960 Orbs per cosmetic.

And after doing that, Temptation’s End apparently remained exactly the same color.

No Matter Which Color Is Selected, It Stays Default

The report was filed on August 16 by a player using a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra running Diablo Immortal version 5.0.0.

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Diablo 4 Lowered the Skovos Requirement — Some Players Still Can’t Get the Mount

Diablo 4 fixed one of Skovos' most irritating exploration problems.

Then apparently forgot about some of the players who had already finished it.

The No Island Unturned achievement originally asked players to discover 67 areas in Skovos. Unfortunately, many players reached 65/67 and discovered there did not appear to be another two areas to find.

The requirement has since been changed to 65/65.

Problem solved.

Except players who had already explored those 65 areas before the change say the achievement can remain stuck at Not Started, preventing the associated Amazonian Charge mount from unlocking.

The Original Problem Was 65/67

The main bug report dates back to July 5.

The player had fully explored Skovos on Eternal Softcore and then repeated the process on Eternal Hardcore.

Both times, the map stopped at 65/67.

After Diablo 4 changed the requirement to 65/65, the exploration counter correctly updated.

The achievement did not.

The player says No Island Unturned remained incomplete despite the map now showing full exploration, which also meant the Amazonian Charge reward never arrived.

Other players immediately reported the same thing.

One described the challenge as showing Not Started despite all of Skovos being visible.

Another confirmed the problem still existed on July 17 after completing the regions during the earlier 65/67 bug.

65/65 Apparently Isn’t Enough for Some Accounts

A separate Technical Support report from July 29 describes the same situation in even simpler terms:

Exploration Progress: 65/65.

No Island Unturned: incomplete.

The player had also completed the Lord of Hatred campaign on both Softcore and Hardcore and said exploration was the only remaining challenge preventing full completion.

By August 17, the issue was still being reported.

One player said they had 65/65 on both Softcore and Hardcore before the fix and still had not received retroactive credit.

That makes the current problem less about discovering Skovos.

Players already did that.

The game just needs to notice.

The Likely Problem Is Retroactive Progress

Players have developed a fairly convincing theory.

If you discovered the 65 valid Skovos areas after the requirement changed, the final area can trigger the achievement normally.

If your account already had all 65 areas discovered beforehand, there may be no new exploration event left to trigger the achievement check.

That would explain why some players can reach 65/65 and receive the mount while others remain permanently stuck despite displaying the exact same number.

Blizzard has not publicly confirmed that technical explanation, so it remains a community diagnosis rather than an official cause.

The Community Workaround Is Not Especially Convenient

One workaround suggested by players is completing Skovos exploration on a fresh realm state, particularly Hardcore if the player has not already explored it there.

The idea is simple:

Start with fewer than 65 discovered areas.

Reach 65/65 naturally.

Let the final discovery trigger the achievement.

That has reportedly worked for some players.

It is less helpful for people who already explored Skovos on both Softcore and Hardcore before Blizzard changed the requirement.

Those players have effectively run out of fresh maps to complete.

That is an impressive achievement in itself.

Unfortunately it does not come with the mount.

The Amazonian Charge Is the Part Players Actually Care About

Achievement completion is nice.

The Amazonian Charge is nicer.

The mount is tied to No Island Unturned, which means this is not merely a challenge counter displaying the wrong percentage.

Players are being prevented from receiving a cosmetic reward attached to completing the exploration requirement.

That puts the bug in the same irritating category as several progression problems we have covered recently.

Some Eternal characters still cannot skip the Lord of Hatred campaign despite completing it elsewhere.

Players are still reporting that the Secret Cow Level quest can soft-lock during the Anger step.

And groups reaching Ultimate Nemesis can still finish the fight without everyone receiving the expected loot.

Different systems.

Same sentence:

I did the thing. Where is my reward?

Skovos May Have Another Tracking Problem Too

There is another fresh Skovos-related report from August 17.

One Eternal player says their Skovos World Event Master progress is stuck at 93/100 even after repeatedly killing the Skovos World Boss enough times that they believe the count should have reached 100.

That is currently only a single report, so there is no reason to assume the two problems share the same cause.

But it is another example of Skovos progression apparently not always registering the activity happening directly in front of it.

Season 14 Has Had a Strange Collection of Tracking Bugs

Diablo 4 is currently carrying several bugs where the underlying action seems to work while the progression or stat attached to it does not.

We recently covered a Block Chance problem where Greater Affixes and Masterworking reportedly leave the stat unchanged.

And today we looked at a Transfiguration report where a near-perfect amulet became Unmodifiable without any visible reward.

That is what makes No Island Unturned particularly frustrating.

There is no mystery about whether the player completed the requirement.

The game itself says:

65/65.

Blizzard Needs a Retroactive Check

Players affected by the old 65/67 state are asking Blizzard for a backend or retroactive progression check that recognizes accounts already sitting at 65/65 and grants the missing achievement and reward.

That sounds like the cleanest solution if the community diagnosis is correct.

Do not ask players to rediscover an area that is already discovered.

Do not ask them to create another character.

Do not ask them to explore an island for the third time.

Just look at the counter.

65.

Out of 65.

There are more complicated mathematical problems in Diablo 4.

This probably should not be one of them.

Sources

Diablo IV Forums: No Island Unturned Achievement and Amazonian Charge Mount Not Granted After Skovos Requirement Update

Diablo IV Forums: Unable to Complete No Island Unturned Achievement Despite 65/65 Exploration

Diablo IV Forums: World Boss Kills in Skovos Are Not Being Counted in Eternal

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