[GameSpot] - Diablo 2: Resurrected's First Ladder Season Starts Today

[343iBot]

Long delayed, Diablo II: Resurrected is finally getting its first Ladder season today, seven months after the game's launch and two weeks after the game received its most substantial balance update in nearly a decade.

Diablo II: Resurrected's inaugural Ladder season has been a long time coming, as various post-launch issues caused Blizzard to delay the debut of the feature until it could ensure the game's stability.

Just like in the original version of Diablo II, Diablo II: Resurrected's Ladder system essentially serves as a type of competitive seasonal play, where players make new, Ladder-only characters and climb the leaderboards. Players can choose from playing a character on the Classic Ladder (which encompasses the original game's four acts), Hardcore Classic Ladder (the same as Classic albeit with the added wrinkle of character's only having one life), or both Classic and Hardcore Ladders that encompass the game's Lord of Destruction expansion content.

Characters made on a specific Ladder can only play with other characters on that same Ladder. At the end of the season, Ladder characters will be converted into non-Ladder characters, and will retain any Ladder-exclusive items equipped or found in that character's inventory. Items stored in the seasonal Ladder stash will have until the start of Ladder Season 3 to be retrieved, lest they be lost forever. Ladder seasons are planned to last around four months.

Blizzard will be celebrating the game's first Ladder season with a livestream event it's calling The Infernal Race. Various Diablo content creators will be working together as well as competing with one another as they seek to race to the top of the seasonal leaderboards. Fans can watch the race on the official Diablo Twitch channel.

The game's first Ladder season follows the release of the major patch 2.4 update, which introduced major class balance changes, new items and rune words, tweaks to the game's various mercenaries, and more. It is the first major patch for Diablo II since 2010's patch 1.13c.

Blizzard recently announced its free-to-play Diablo mobile game, Diablo Immortal, will also be coming to PC with cross-progression and cross-platform play. Diablo Immortal is set to release June 2, with the PC version of the game launching in an open beta state.

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