Blizzard’s next Diablo 4 expansion, Lord of Hatred, officially launches on April 28, 2026, and it comes with a large number of changes as well as new story content, two new classes, and more.
Coming just after the studio released a new DLC for the 25-year-old Diablo 2 with Reign of the Warlock, Lord of Hatred is a very important release for Diablo 4. After two years, the new expansion aims to not only continue the game’s story, but also improve the majority of the game’s core systems, including substantial changes to the levelling curve in the ARPG.
For Lord of Hatred, game director Colin Finer explained that the game will not have a rebalancing level curve that means earlier levels last longer and later levels no longer take an age to get through. While the new expansion comes with an increased level cap of 70, Diablo 4 players will actually hit the maximum level without any additional time commitment.
“We’ve increased the level cap, but the time it takes to get max-level is the same,” Finer told press at a recent roundtable interview. (Thanks, Eurogamer.) However, the plan is to make sure that the game’s early levels no longer feel like they’re non-existent, and players are no longer speeding through the beginning of the game when they make a new character.
“What we’re doing is front-loading a lot of the monster cleaning you do early, so it’s slower early, but then in the later levels, it’s much less,” the game director said. “Imagine it takes 20 hours to get the max level: we’re essentially saying the first 20 levels are going to take a little bit longer but the back half is going to be much faster.”
Finer explains that this change will allow players to learn their classes more gradually. If you’ve played Diablo 4 recently, you’ll know that the first 20-or-so levels are gone in a blur, and you’re earning new skills before you really get to explore how they actually work early on. While this is all fine and dandy for returning players, it’s not the most engaging for newcomers at all. Also, it does make the beginning of the game just feel like a speedrun mode.
Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred also comes with an overhauled skill tree which makes this new change in levelling make a lot of sense. Instead of players jumping straight back into their known builds, Blizzard is actively encouraging experimentation in the early game for all classes, which should be quite refreshing. Additionally, the new expansion comes alongside a major loot rework which should improve the game’s often-maligned itemisation.
