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
