Diablo 4 has been out for nearly three years, with two entire expansions under its belt. I admit I haven’t been paying super-close attention to it recently, and I just sort of assumed that it, like all the other Diablos, had a Secret Cow Level that players had discovered within a few weeks of launch and that everyone had promptly laughed about and moved on. I was surprised to discover, then, that said Secret Cow Level was actually just found yesterday.
Diablo games have a long, storied history of cow levels. The idea of a cow level originated as a then-false rumor about the first Diablo, that a secret level could be reached by clicking on the game’s cows enough and entering a portal. The devs found the rumor amusing enough to start making cow-related in-game gags about it, and in Diablo 2 an actual secret level called Moo Moo Farm, complete with a Cow King boss, was added. Diablo 3 had multiple similar riffs on the theme, and Blizzard has slipped cow level and cow king references into its other games, too, like World of Warcraft.
Ever since Diablo 4 launched, players have been looking for the cow level that surely must be in the game. And their theories were far from mere speculation. Players managed to compile all sorts of weird clues that a cow level was waiting for them somewhere: there’s a cow-shaped map in one spot, someone found a special item by killing exactly 666 cows, those sorts of things.
But the Cow Level quest never fully coalesced until now. That’s because the Cow Level is not only rather difficult and obtuse to find, but it also necessitated some information and quest items only obtainable in the most recent expansion, Lord of Hatred. LoatheBurger, a YouTuber who has helped lead the charge in finding the cow level, has compiled videos on exactly how to complete all the Cow Quests that lead to the Cow Level, three in all. I watched his explanations through and every aspect of this sounds like a massive, ridiculous conspiracy theory. I have no idea how anyone solved it. Initially, the resolution to these quests seems to be a dud, as combining all three quest rewards grants you an achievement called “There Is No Cow Level,” echoing Blizzard’s ongoing cheeky insistence that the game had no cow level, and the location on the other side of the quest is just a cow-themed island with more cryptic imagery, such as 12 cows standing in a circle and a bunch of human skeletons gazing at a cow statue.
But players knew better. It’d be no fun at all if that were the end. Not long after all these clues were assembled, LoatheBurger solved the riddle of Cow Island and made it to the Cow Level just yesterday:
But that might not be the end of the mystery.
The Cow Level itself does, as is tradition, include a boss called The Cow King who looks exactly like you think he does. Defeating him drops a mythic helm entitled the Cow King’s Crown, which includes a bunch of absurd affixes dependent on what day of the week it is, some of which make no sense like “Wednesday: Chance to reduce enemy Cooldown (No)” and “Saturday: +1.3% chance to ignore Crowd Control if you have already been Crowd Controlled for over 10 weeks in Helltide.” Useful. But the Cow King also drops an item called “Prime Rib.” Prime Rib is categorized as a rare quest item, and its flavor text reads, “Such a prime cut would be a worthy offering to anyone, even to a god.” This text has led players to believe that the Cow Level isn’t the end of the quest, and that using the Prime Rib correctly could lead to something more, such as a confrontation with a Cow God? Current running theories are that it might have something to do with fishing, or the sea, based on…a bunch of clues in years-old interviews? Yeah, this questline is seriously nuts, but given how ridiculous the lead-up has been, they’re likely onto something.
Best of luck to the Diablo 4 secret hunters who are currently trying to summon the great Cow God from the sea or something. I hope the epic conclusion of this saga is as mooving and meaty as you all deserve.
