A newly-surfaced Diablo 4 glitch lets players transfer their Eternal Realm characters into the Seasonal Realm, sparking concern about the potential of a Blizzard ban.
YouTuber Glitch Unlimited posted a video breaking down this inter-realm travel and what it enables. In summary, to exploit the glitch you need to be in a group with a friend in the Seasonal Realm, briefly disconnect your internet, then log back into the Seasonal Realm with your Eternal character.
Eternal characters who exploit this glitch can benefit from the Seasonal Blessing experience boost, which will let them level up faster than they would normally be able to. Eternal Realm characters can also carry over their gear and inventory items, which creates obvious issues for the balance of the Seasonal Realm Blizzard has created.
For example, you can sell your items for gold, creating effective inter-realm gold transfer. You can also give Aspects and items to your Seasonal character by dropping them into your stash. Malignant Hearts, however, do not work in the Eternal Realm.
This is obviously not intended gameplay from Blizzard’s perspective, but it may already be popular. Some Diablo 4 players were unhappy to learn they had to start a new seasonal character to play Season 1 content, including its battle pass. Exploiting this glitch bypasses this requirement.
The exploit is so obviously problematic that some Diablo 4 fans speculate Blizzard may issue retrospective bans to those who have made use of it. “This sounds like one of those exploits Bliz gonna drop a ban hammer on people for,” said jeremysmith9319 in the YouTube comments.
“Pretty sure I had this happen and I wasn’t doing it on purpose; not sure what items got swapped. I’ll probably get banned even though it was a bug,” said nameundefined4317.
“This will get you guys a 100% permanent ban for sure,” said beatrageGameSalad. “Speedrunning a ban right here,” added ThanatosTheDH.
IGN has asked Blizzard for comment on potential bans. Meanwhile, Blizzard is set to issue patch notes for update 1.1.1 later today, and fans are already keen to see whether a fix is included. The patch itself goes live August 8.
Despite various issues, Diablo 4 enjoyed an enormous launch that saw over 10 million people play in June. It’s Blizzard’s fastest-selling game of all time and has fuelled record revenue and profits for the company. If you’re still playing, check out our interactive Diablo 4 map to start tracking your progress as you play.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].