Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant Battle Pass Repeats a…

Summary

Diablo 4's first season introduces a time-consuming battle pass with a cosmetic grind that leaves players disappointed.
The battle pass progression is slow and tedious, requiring players to collect a type of currency called Favor by completing activities.
Blizzard seems to have designed the battle pass to cater to hardcore players or those willing to spend money on tier skips, potentially alienating casual fans with its microtransaction-heavy approach.

Diablo 4's first season has finally arrived, and it has brought with it a pretty bland battle pass. While the new Malignant feature is interesting, the additional cosmetics and grind leave much to be desired. The entire season is built around grinding out Diablo 4's first ever battle pass, but it is not what many players expected.

Diablo 4's battle pass works much like every other battle pass throughout the industry, but it feels far slower than other versions. It can take hours to unlock the next tier, and the seasonal journey objectives make the process feel even more stretched out. Everything about the system feels sluggish, but unfortunately, that may be the point. Diablo 4 was criticized for predatory microtransactions at launch, and it seems like the game's first battle pass will result in similar complaints, as a small amount of earnable Silver encourages players to spend more money while a massive playtime requirement means players may be pressured to grab some tier skips.

How Diablo 4's Battle Pass Pushes Players Toward Tier Skips

Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant battle pass gives players 90 different tiers of cosmetic goodies for them to claim. These items range from simple emotes and weapon skins to multiple full-on armor sets. There is a ton of content to grab here, and players will likely spend months trying to unlock it all. Anyone that wants to partake in this system can claim 27 tiers for free or spend $10 to start grinding out the entire thing.

Diablo 4's battle pass is structured much like every other battle pass before it. However, its progression feels rather tedious. The only way for players to unlock new tiers is by collecting a type of currency known as Favor. The easiest way to earn Favor is by killing monsters and completing quests on seasonal characters, but this method can feel terribly slow as these activities do not award a lot. Instead, players will likely want to focus on the brand-new Season Journey feature to finish their battle pass.

Diablo 4's Season Journey is where players can find their classic battle pass objectives. It is broken up into seven chapters with multiple challenges in each. These challenges award a small amount of Favor, but often take a little while to complete. Once players finish the majority of challenges within a chapter, they will be awarded a much larger amount of Favor, resources, titles, and Legendary Aspects.

While it sounds like Favor is relatively easy to earn, Blizzard has not made it feel very fast. The Season Journey challenges often require players to travel across Sanctuary to complete. Players are required to reach certain levels, complete multiple dungeons, conquer some of the hardest content, and even engage in some PvP. Most of these activities take a long time to complete, and there is no obvious way to see how much Favor is needed for the next tier.

It feels like Blizzard has designed the Diablo 4 battle pass for either diehard players or those willing to spend money on tier skips. Players can purchase an accelerated battle pass that gives them 20 tier skips for $25, or they can purchase tier skips for 200 Platinum each as they progress through the pass. While players that can dedicate around 80 hours to Diablo 4 should be able to get through it without spending a dime, other players may feel forced to purchase a few skips along the way.

Diablo 4's Season of the Malignant has been a bit of a bumpy ride so far, and this battle pass is not helping. Players have also discovered that the pass does not even award players enough Platinum for the cheapest store cosmetics. This makes it feel like the pass is nothing more than a way to get players to spend even more money on microtransactions, as they could be motivated to buy a small silver pack to get enough for a store item. Instead of keeping gamers hooked, this battle pass design could push fans away in droves.