A new Season in Diablo 4 means a fresh start, but what happens to the progress you’ve made so far? While players must create a new “Seasonal character” to play Seasonal content, your previous efforts exploring Sanctuary and slaying demons weren’t done in vain. This guide explains everything you need to know about Diablo 4 Season resets, including the rewards and progress players get to keep going forward — such as Renown and Altars of Lilith.
Diablo 4 Season reset explained — Eternal and Seasonal Realm Differences
Beginning in Diablo 4 Season One, all characters are split into the Eternal Realm and Seasonal Realm. To play Seasonal content and earn Seasonal rewards, including the Battle Pass, you need to create a fresh character on the Seasonal Realm each Season. If you’ve completed the campaign at least once on your account, new characters can skip the campaign and will have instant access to Mounts. If you haven’t managed to complete the campaign but have obtained a mount, don’t worry. You’ll be able to giddy up straight away.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
At the end of a Season (as well as the beginning of Season One), all characters are automatically moved into the Eternal Realm. This is the vanilla Diablo 4 experience, with no Seasonal features, storylines, or opportunity to earn Battle Pass rewards. Characters from the Eternal Realm can’t play or share items with Seasonal Realm characters, either.
While you won’t be able to use your previously earned gear in the Seasonal Realm, plenty of things transfer permanently from the Eternal Realm to the Seasonal Realm, such as Altars of Lilith and Appearances. We’ve provided a complete list below, based on the information presented in July Developer Update and Blizzard’s News section.
Everything that transfers between Diablo 4 Seasons
All Characters
- Altars of Lilith
- Areas discovered on the map
- Renown linked to Altars of Lilith and discovered areas
- Mounts
- Transmog (Appearances)
- Challenges
Seasonal Realm
- Renown bonuses (Point Capacity, Skill Points, etc)
As long as a character has been logged in once from the beginning of Diablo 4 Season One, all map progress, Altars of Lilith, and related Renown from that character will transfer over to all current and future characters. Combined with the Campaign skip, this makes leveling Seasonal Characters much faster and Seasonal content easier to jump into.
Renown bonuses, such as Potion Capacity and Skill Points, will transfer between characters on the realm it is earned on. For example, if a character in the Season Realm earns + 1 Potion Capacity, any other characters on the Seasonal Realm will also earn that bonus.
Why does Diablo 4 have Season resets?
According to Blizzard, Season resets exist so developers can introduce fun features without having to worry about balancing them around ever-expanding features. This also prevents players from becoming overwhelmed and allows new players to jump in and play with friends that couldn’t stop yapping about how good Diablo 4 is.
While this may sound outlandish to those new to the franchise, Blizzard has a track record of (usually) listening to player feedback, and the Seasonal model has worked well in past Diablo titles.
Diablo 4 is available on Battle.net.
