Diablo 4 announces Kulle new theme for Season 3 — Season of the Construct starts January 23 and introduces new Vaults dungeon and… robots?
Season 3 will see the return of Zoltun Kulle, a new dungeon type and a seasonal robotic companion
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What you need to know
Diablo 4 has announced the theme, start date, and new gameplay mechanics for Season 3 today. Season of the Construct will arrive on January 23 as Season of Blood ends, so if you have yet to finish your season activities now is the time! We’ve loads of new activities to look forward to including the addition of weekly leaderboards with The Gauntlet, and a brand-new dungeon-type — Vaults.Here’s the trailer for Season 3.
‘Season of the Construct’ sees a new quest line
“A new threat lurks deep beneath the sands of Kehjistan, where the Loom, an ancient technology—designed by Zoltun Kulle and Ayuzhan of Caldeum—has been usurped by the forces of evil. The Demon Malphas is responsible for twisting the Loom for his cruel whims. Zoltun’s former companion Ayuzhan leads you through the treacherous Vaults, desperate to stop the formidable Malphas and his deadly constructs from overtaking Sanctuary.” This is our first introduction to Season 3, and fans of the franchise will be more than familiar with our favorite egotistical sorcerer, Zoltun Kulle.FUN FACT:Zoltan Kulle is voiced by Steve Blum in Diablo 3, and also voices Mephisto which lead to a lot of incorrect theories about the wolf’s identity in Diablo 4.
We’ll travel to the ‘Gatehall’ a new area underneath Kehjistan that will be our base housing the Loom, an ancient construct crafted by Zoltan Kulle. Here we will access deadly Vault dungeons and fight against new hazards and Constructs.
New ‘Seneschal Companion’
Also available to acquire during the Construct questline, will be our very own Seneschal Companion. Our very own construct to help in battle either directly or on the sidelines.
Using magical Governing and Tuning Stones from the Vault dungeons and around Sanctuary, we’ll be able to augment our companion with different skills and abilities. There will be 12 Governing Stones and 27 different Tuning Stones of different rarities to seek out in the Vaults to unlock the full power of the Seneschal construct.
Once we’ve acquired our Seneschal, they’ll follow us everywhere in Sanctuary until Season of the Construct ends.
Governing stones and Tuning stones
Governing stones
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Tuning Stone Abilities:
New dungeons to explore: Vaults
Vaults will house elemental Hazards crafted by Zoltun Kulle himself. When you enter the Vault—after using the necessary Pearls of Warding— you can receive Zoltun’s Warding, a special multi-layered blessing which allows you to access treasures within the Vaults. Zoltun’s Warding loses one layer at a time if you encounter the various Hazards that fill the Vaults.
If you defeat the Vault Boss with Zoltun’s Warding still intact, you’ll open a Wardwoven Chest, which has a better chance of giving you Legendary items. You can raise the stakes by trading Pearls of Warding for more layers of Zoltun’s Warding at the Vault entrance—if you succeed, your prize will grow as well.
AtWorld Tier III, Nightmare Vaults become available. Vault Sigils will appear with normalNightmare DungeonSigils, or you can make them with Pearls of Warding. These Vaults work like Nightmare Dungeons—but they will have lethal Constructs and Hazards everywhere, and the Wardwoven Chests,
The Gauntlet: finally we have leaderboards
Diablo 4 just hasn’t felt the same without the leaderboards we enjoyed in the previous instalments, and finally as of Season 3 we will get a leaderboard of sorts with The Gauntlet. A brand new challenge to fight through. It will be a weekly rotating dungeon to complete in which the top scorers of the week will earn a permanent place in the Hall of the Ancients. We will likely hear more about this in the developer chat on Thursday, but so far it sounds like a hybrid between Diablo 3’s challenge rifts and greater rifts. Challenge Rifts were a weekly dungeon, fixed in layout and mob density that you had to complete against a timer, however, everyone did this with the same build as designated by Blizzard that week. The Gauntlet will be completed by your own character and build, akin to Greater Rifts from Diablo 3, without the uncertainty of what map you will get. It’s very intriguing and I can’t wait to see more details.
Quality of life updates to look forward to
As well as the new Season theme, we’ll also get a patch addressing some much needed quality of life updates. These will include:
New Battle Pass
As with the previous seasons, there will be a battle pass to complete of which there is a free tier, and a paid for premium tier. This will be broken up into chapters where we’ll be able to earn new legendary aspects, Awoken Adamant Armor and 3 scrolls of amnesia for free skill tree and paragon resets. The Battle pass will be 90 Reward Tiers—28 Free Tiers and 62 Premium Tiers.Rewards to look forward to are the Awoken Spheral Barding mount armor and the Awoken Clockwork Equid Mount at Tier 90.
This season is really branching out
I thoroughly enjoyed Season 2, theSeason of Blood, and Season 3 appears poised to introduce entirely unexpected mechanics to Diablo 4. However the theme itself may not come as a total surprise,Diablo podcastco-host and lore expert Neinball impressively predicted that we would encounter Kulle-themed content based solely on an image posted on Twitter. The guys over at Pure Diablosummarized the theory here, and it turns out they weren’t far from the reality.
So while we’re all getting hyped about Diablo 4 Season 3, I’ve been wondering if the teaser image we got at BlizzCon was an actual hint at what’s coming next or if it’s just some really cool concept art that got tapped for marketing. If it’s the former, I have an kulle idea. pic.twitter.com/udRtuFHIRAJanuary 9, 2024
Do check out the full update over atBlizzard herewith more info on the story behind this new quest. We can look forward to even more information about Season 3 on Thursday with the developer livestream, and I’ll of course be here to follow all the action. I am hoping for more details specifically on the quality of life updates to the game, and where the team is at with Nightmare dungeons and glyph leveling specifically as personally I found this a huge bottleneck with completing the last season. With it looking like we’ll have so many more new and exciting activities to take part in, Nightmare Dungeons look even less enticing. We’ve also been teased with promises of itemization overhauls coming for Season 4, which while some time away yet I can’t wait to hear more about.What do you think of the new season?
Jen is a News Writer for Windows Central, focused on all things gaming and Microsoft. Anything slaying monsters with magical weapons will get a thumbs up such as Dark Souls, Dragon Age, Diablo, and Monster Hunter. When not playing games, she’ll be watching a horror or trash reality TV show, she hasn’t decided which of those categories the Kardashians fit into. You can follow Jen on Twitter@Jenbox360for more Diablo fangirling and general moaning about British weather.
