I haven’t played Diablo since 2015.
I have two different Battle.net accounts. One has Diablo 3 and the other has every other Blizzard and Activision title I own. Don’t ask how it came about. I probably just forgot the password for my original account before I cared about any of the titles on it.
I tell you this because Reaper of Souls was a good excuse to get back into the game. It added lots of new endgame treats like Adventure Mode, Nephalem rifts, greater rifts, new treasure goblins, and much more. But my original copy was sitting on that lone PC account and swapping back and forth between the two didn’t sound too enticing. So I made the move to console.
I’m not one to repurchase the exact same game multiple times unless release dates are staggered across platforms. Why buy the same version of Zelda seven times over? I never really understood how folks justified it, but here I was repurchasing the same game for a different platform.
It didn’t feel great.
I had to grind through the main quest, about a 15-hour slog, before getting to experience the new endgame activities. By the time I got there I had nearly filled my Diablo reservoirs. It didn’t seem long until I put the game down again.
Switching Things Up
Now it’s out on Switch. I am playing it again.
Maybe it’s just because Switch is easy to pick up and play. It takes effort to set up my laptop to play or to make sure my console is ready to go. But now I can pick up and play Diablo? Even on the go? I’m all about that.
Until recently, I knew very little about Diablo Seasons. They were added on PC back in 2014 and to consoles in March 2017. What I did understand was that you had to start a new character each season with limited-time rewards for completing various objectives during the roughly 10-12 week period.
The whole point is that your character is isolated from the rest. There’s no transferring gold, gear, or anything like that to a seasonal character. Although, once the season comes to an end, everything is rolled back into your profile as a whole. The gold adds to your pool. Loot transfers into your chest. The experience is tallied and combined with your existing Paragon rank.
It seemed intimidating at a glance. I had already played through the campaign multiple times. The thought of doing so again, and then repeating that process in another 10 weeks, made me want to walk away.
The Switch version of Diablo 3 is refreshing because Blizzard unlocks Adventure mode from the start. It’s great! It really is. But I couldn’t help but feel like I needed an extra little boost—more motivation to play the game. So I decided to take a look at Seasons.
I created a new character and designated it as a Seasonal hero. I got to the loading screen, hit start, and the campaign started all over. Needless to say, it was disappointing. After about 10 minutes or so I backed out. The menu changes when you have existing progress, though, and that’s when I realized I could switch the game to adventure.
Turns out you don’t have to complete the campaign every single season.
For years I’ve been thinking that seasons meant starting from scratch. For real. Do the campaign, unlock adventure mode, etc.
Turns out you can start off in adventure mode.
Diablo has loot to chase, sure, but I need systems to motivate me. Seasons are a fun way to see what I can do in a limited amount of time before trying something new. Vary things up. Swap to a different class. Try a different build. Explore the game in ways I wouldn’t have otherwise.
When the time comes and I’m ready for something more difficult I can start tackling the real challenges; like leaderboards and conquests.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get my Switch.
