Blizzard may have accidentally teased a new Torment difficulty level coming to Diablo 4 in the recent 30th Anniversary Spotlight. The developer hasn’t officially confirmed that Torment 5 is coming to Diablo 4 in Season 12 or the Lord of Hatred expansion, but eagle-eyed gamers have noticed that it seems to appear briefly during the recent features video.
Diablo 4‘s Torment is how the game handles endgame difficulty. Although players can choose between Normal, Hard, Expert, and Penitent from the start, those who have reached Level 60 are able to move to Torment 1, which ups the difficulty massively. From there, players can unlock three more Torment tiers, for a total of four. Each Torment tier makes enemies much more difficult to defeat, and also makes the player easier to kill. The trade-off is that players also receive more XP, Gold, and better loot, making progressing through the Torment tiers a necessity in the endgame. But with players always finding new broken Diablo 4 builds that can make even Torment 4 feel like a walk in the park, there have been calls for Blizzard to introduce a new tier to the game.
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Diablo 4 Might Have Accidentally Teased Torment 5
During the Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight overview video, Blizzard included a clip showing the world tier as “Torment V.” This happens during the “Echoing Hatred” section, with Torment 5 appearing at around 5:46. Blizzard has not officially confirmed whether Torment 5 is coming to the game, even with Diablo 4‘s Lord of Hatred expansion on the horizon. This may be an oversight on Blizzard’s part, as it may have intended to announce it closer to its release. It definitely appears, though, offering hope that a new level of difficulty may be on the way to the game. It’s also worth noting that plans may change in the future, so even though Torment 5 appears to be in development here, there’s no guarantee it will actually make it into the live game.
A Reddit thread started by user One_Guess_5988 pointed out Torment 5’s appearance in the video, and not everyone was happy. One user claimed they would prefer that Blizzard be “focused on making the difficulty increases in the existing tiers more meaningful instead of adding yet more,” saying that “within a couple of years we’ll be at D3 levels of insanity.” For context, Diablo 3 has 16 Torment tiers, with monster health increasing by 13,888,770% at the final tier. Another gamer described a new Torment tier as “a temporary fix to a bigger issue,” saying that Blizzard is doing this in lieu of balancing Diablo 4. “They will just continue to introduce more torment levels the more power creep comes out. When T5 isn’t enough, they’ll introduce T6. Then 7, then 8,” the player claimed.
It remains to be seen how a potential new Torment level is affected by all the changes coming in Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred. The upcoming expansion will undoubtedly introduce tons of new content, and it’s possible that it will also introduce more power creep in the confines of the existing four Torment tiers. This would be a problem, especially for endgame players. In this instance, it may work out better in practice than how some fans feel about it in concept at the moment.
Blizzard recently revealed the Warlock for Diablo 4, which is coming as the second new class for Lord of Hatred, alongside the already-playable Paladin. It’s set to be an exciting period for the game, which has enjoyed a run of very strong seasons over the last year. The game still attracts very strong player counts, giving Diablo 4 a solid foundation for continued growth.
- Released
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June 5, 2023
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
