Diablo 3 Season 21 Update Release Date Revealed

Blizzard has confirmed that Diablo 3‘s Season 21 update (which is formally known as Trials of Tempest) will begin on July 3.

Diablo 3‘s Trials of Tempest update is highlighted by a fascinating new elemental system. Every 90 seconds, your character will channel a variety of random elemental effects. The effects revealed thus far include a rain of meteors, lighting breath, a wall of flames, energy tornadoes, and a devastating snowstorm. The exact functionality of these effects remain a bit of a mystery, but the popular theory is that they’ll be variations of existing, similar spells.

Blizzard has also outlined some of the new challenges of this season, which includes a race to “complete the entire Diablo III campaign from Act I to Act V at level 70 in under 1 hour.” Additional challenges include completing a “50 million gold streak outside of The Vault or its Inner Sanctum,” “completion of a Greater Rift level 45—solo and without any Set items equipped,” beating a “Torment X Nephalem Rift at level 70 in 2 minutes,” and picking “any Cursed Chest event that requires killing monsters and defeat over 350 or more at level 70 on Torment X or higher.”

Along with a variety of new class sets and other rewards, Season 21 will continue the trend started in Season 17 by allowing players to acquire rewards introduced in previous content seasons that they may have missed. This time around, you’ll be able to acquire rewards previously introduced in Diablo 3‘s Season 9 content update.

Additionally, those who complete the entirety of the Season 21 update will be rewarded with a Stupendous Contraption pet and an Industrial Portrait frame. This again continues an idea introduced in Season 17 which encourages players to earn what Blizzard refers to as “End of Journey rewards.”

For more information on Diablo 3‘s Season 21 update, be sure to check out the official Blizzard post on the upcoming season of content, which includes a full round of currently planned patch notes.

The extent of these seasonal updates does seem to shed some light on why Blizzard doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to release Diablo 4. While it’s true that Diablo 4 appears to be coming along nicely and looks to feature many of the design elements some fans felt were missing from Diablo 3, Blizzard continues to support Diablo 3 in such a way that ensures they can mold the game into pretty much whatever they want within the confines of existing technology.

That said, we still wonder where the company stands on the controversial Diablo Immortal mobile game as well as that rumored Diablo 2 remaster/remake.