Diablo 4 Season 8 Journey changes, explained

Diablo 4 Season 8’s Journey, a series of challenges that dole out in-game rewards, has received a last-second change. In addition to the other changes that came with it for the Season of Belial’s Return, the developers have decided not to lock some of the more important rewards behind later parts of the system. I feel this was a very important change to make. After all, if they’re going to make the game harder, why punish players who aren’t going to go for those ultimate challenges?

According to the official Diablo 4 account on Twitter, there were some last-second changes made, specifically to how Smoldering Ashes and the Seasonal Pet Reward (Iris) would be acquired. This is ultimately a good series of changes, but they aren’t the only things to update. Here’s what we know right now.

Diablo 4 Season 8 Journey receives an important change ahead of launch

The official Diablo 4 account took to reddit ahead of Season 8 to state there were some Season Journey changes to be had. While these changes will be made immediately in the game’s code, the UI of the game will be updated at a later date.

Season Journey Changes for Belial's Return byu/diablo indiablo4

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The developers stated the previous system had the majority of Smoldering Ashes and the Seasonal Pet Reward were hidden behind Chapter 7 in the Season Journey. This has been changed to what you see below:

Chapter II: 2 Ashes via Chapter completion
Chapter III: 2 Ashes via Chapter completion
Chapter IV: 3 Ashes via Chapter completion + 1 Ash via Chapter objective
Chapter V: 3 Ashes via Chapter completion + 1 Ash via Chapter objective
Chapter VI: 3 Ashes via Chapter completion + 1 Ash via Chapter objective
Chapter VII: 3 Ashes via Chapter completion + 1 Ash via Chapter objective

The new Seasonal Pet will be unlocked after you complete Chapter VI, instead of Chapter VII. This is an amazing change, because I feel many players would feel slighted at the game being made harder, and then making important/fun rewards even harder to attain.

Diablo 4 Season 8 Journey received a few other changes to how the challenges and rewards are organized

In addition to the above changes, other changes were made to Diablo 4’s Season Journey in Season 8. It’s still seven sections, each with their own rewards and drops. However, instead of having to complete a series of 7-9 challenges like in previous seasons, they’ve been made into groups of challenges.

This doesn't feel like much of an improvement, but we'll see (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

For example, Chapter I requires you to complete 3 of 3 objectives. That means you have to complete the 6 objectives in Lies and Illusions, the 4 objectives in Potent Alchemy, and the 2 objectives in A Taste of What’s to Come. While the later chapters give players a bit more flexibility, I’m not sure that I’m a fan of this change.

It still feels like the exact same amount of work, or potentially more work to get these rewards in the Seasonal Journey. I’ll have to see how I feel about it after actually playing, but I’m not really excited about this change, compared to the other one.

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Jason is an Esports and Gaming journalist at Sportskeeda holding an amazing 11 years of experience under his belt. Having put out 4000-plus articles and amassing over 12 million reads for Sportskeeda, he is among the company’s most experienced writers. Jason holds a Bachelor's degree in English from UNC Pembroke and was inspired to become a gaming journalist very early on in life after reading Nintendo Power.

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Edited by Jason Parker