Another Misfire: Why Diablo 4’s Latest Event Won’t Reignite the Spark

As the “Seasonal Model” for live-service games continues to dominate the industry, Diablo 4 has consistently struggled to find its footing. While Season 4, “Loot Reborn,” was widely hailed as a step in the right direction, the newly launched Season 5, titled “Sins of the Horadrim,” is already generating a familiar sense of disappointment. Despite introducing a new seasonal mechanic, new bosses, and quality-of-life updates, early impressions suggest that this latest event will fail to move the needle in a meaningful way. It’s another example of Blizzard’s ongoing challenge to deliver a compelling and sustainable endgame experience that can keep players engaged beyond the first few weeks.

The Core Problem: A Repetitive and Uninspired Theme

The central theme of Season 5 is a new questline and a wave-based activity called “Infernal Hordes.” Players must fight through endless waves of demons to collect a new resource, “Burning Aether,” which can be used to purchase powerful items. While this sounds good on paper, it’s a mechanic that has been done countless times before in the genre. For a game that is still trying to win back its player base, a recycled wave-based activity is not the epic, fresh experience that fans were hoping for. The seasonal content feels more like a stopgap measure than a genuine new chapter in the game’s life, especially when it comes with a familiar cast of bosses like the returning Astaroth, now with a new twist.

The issue is compounded by the fact that the seasonal theme is almost entirely separate from the core game. Much like previous seasons, players will have to create a new character to experience the content, which gets transferred to the Eternal Realm after the season ends. This creates a disconnect between the seasonal event and the game’s persistent world, making the new mechanics feel less like a permanent addition and more like a temporary diversion. This is a design philosophy that many in the community have criticized, arguing that it prevents the game from building a meaningful and enduring endgame.

Not Enough Substance: Minor Fixes and a Lack of Long-Term Vision

While Season 5 does include some welcome quality-of-life changes, they are not significant enough to justify the return of lapsed players. The ability to resummon endgame bosses without resetting the dungeon and the improved loot quality from Treasure Goblins are positive steps, but they are incremental improvements rather than game-changing features. They address longstanding issues but do little to add a fresh layer of content that will keep players hooked for months. The game’s player count data from Steam Charts, which shows significant drops after the initial release of a new season, reflects this exact problem: players return for the new content, finish it quickly, and then leave again.

The new “Horadric Spells” and “Horadric Jewels” also fail to deliver on a truly compelling system. They offer a new way to customize abilities but fall short of the transformative impact seen in other live-service titles. They are a new system to learn and master, but they don’t fundamentally change the way the game is played. They are another layer of complexity on top of an already complex game, and for many, they won’t be enough to pull them away from other games like Path of Exile 2 or even the older, more stable Diablo Immortal, which is still seeing significant player growth in 2025.

The Looming Specter of the Vessel of Hatred Expansion

Perhaps the biggest reason for the lukewarm reception is the elephant in the room: the upcoming Vessel of Hatred expansion. Blizzard has already confirmed that the game’s next big chapter will launch in 2026. This means that a large portion of the development team’s resources and creative energy are likely being funneled into the expansion, leaving the seasonal team with a limited scope for new content. This creates a difficult situation where seasons feel like they are simply tiding players over until the real content arrives. It’s a lose-lose situation: the seasonal team can’t make anything too groundbreaking for fear of overshadowing the expansion, and as a result, the seasons feel shallow and uninspired.

Ultimately, “Sins of the Horadrim” is a season that feels designed to simply exist, not to thrive. It offers a new activity and some minor changes, but it fails to address the core issues of the game’s endgame. For players who have been waiting for a reason to return, this season provides little more than a temporary distraction. Unless Blizzard can deliver something truly groundbreaking in its upcoming content, the cycle of boom and bust with each new season will likely continue, and the game will remain a shadow of its potential.