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Roguelikes! They’re all the rage lately, whether it’s a pure run-based game like Hades 2, a devilish combination with something like the settlement-management of Cult of the Lamb or the application of the genre’s live-die-live-again loop to add a new bit of spice to a familiar series like The Rogue Prince of Persia. Into that last category comes a new contender: Diablo 4, which will soon introduce a new wave-based roguelike mode in its next season.
Infernal Hordes is a mixture of roguelike progression – here you’ll be collecting the very Diablo-named resource of Burning Aether to buy new gear at the end of a run – and a classic horde mode, with gangs of enemies arriving in 90-second waves. If you survive a wave and mop up any last foes, you’ll get to pick between three Infernal Offers – temporary upgrades for that run that offer potential bonuses for additional challenge – before moving onto the next wave of baddies.
Pulping all the waves in each of the mode’s eight difficulty tiers will let you proceed to the Well of Hatred to battle three random members of the Fell Council (from five possible bosses), which will reward even more Burning Aether. Aether is obtained per player, so you won’t have to argue with friends about what to spend it on. At the end of a run, you’ll be able to cash in your collected Aether by buying Spoils of Hell, offering equipment, materials, gold and ‘greater equipment’ – an item with a guaranteed Greater Affix – for your efforts.
You can jump into the Infernal Hordes mode using the new Infernal Compass item, which will scale with your world tier and difficulty. The compass itself can be upgraded by collecting Abyssal Scrolls, granting access to higher Infernal Hordes tiers that increase the chance of earning legendary and unique drops, as well as Spoils of Greater Equipment.
The Infernal Hordes mode will debut in Diablo 4’s Season 5, which will be available to try for yourself from tomorrow, June 25th, for a week via the APRG’s Public Test Realm. After that, it’ll arrive in Season 5 proper with any necessary tweaks made in response to the test feedback.
Season 5 will debut a new post-campaign questline called The Eyes of the Enemy, which you’ll need to complete to gain the Infernal Compass needed to play the horde mode. Elsewhere in the update will be new legendaries, uniques and items, which can drop anywhere but will have a higher drop rate in the Infernal Hordes mode.