Diablo 4's long-awaited first season is arriving on the 20th of July, we need now to start preparing ahead of its release. Now, quite a few people were holding off for season 1 to get started, thinking if it's good to play and if it's bad. However, with the reveal for Season 1, Blizzard has added more information on what progression carries over and what progression is required to begin your Season Journey. So if you want to play Diablo 4’s first season when it launches on the 20th, there are a few things you're going to need to do. Read and learn how to prepare for Diablo 4 Season 1 early.

Diablo 4 Season 1 Preparation Guide - Release Time,  Mechanics, Features, Things to Do Before Season 1 Starts in D4

To prepare for Season 1 D4, you need to be eligible to interact with seasonal mechanics and you'll want enough renown to carry over the maximum unlocks possible. Here are things you need to do to prepare for Season 1 Diablo 4.

1. Complete the Campaign

The Season of Malignance is post-campaign content, this means if you haven't completed the campaign yet, you will not be able to speak to Corman in kill the shot and begin your Seasonal Journey. You also won't be able to interact with any of his seasonal mechanics until you finish the campaign. So if you've already played through on one character, you're good to go, you just need to make a new character for the season and select skip the campaign. If you do that, once you hit kill the shot, you're level 1, go talk to Corman and often the Season's Journey you go. But if you've been holding off, haven't played D4 yet, or just been looking for that excuse to finish the campaign and get grinding instead of hopping between five different classes to try all the build, then maybe this is the push you needed and it comes with a bonus of your horse being unlocked right from the get-go. This means that your movement speed will be about 100% faster and 200% more janky. And if you want to build two absolutely annihilate the campaign, then head over to Maxroll.gg. It should make your journey through the campaign as painless as possible. 

2. Altars of Lillith

Renown offers players several permanent bonuses that are unlocked for your character after the threshold is met. These include exploring the map, unlocking waypoints, completing strongholds, doing dungeons, side quests and the Altars of Lilith. Alters of Lilith are important because they provide permanent stat bonuses including Paragon points. So more skill damage, defenses, Paragon, etc. These points are also very helpful to unlock the secondary effects of nodes on your Paragon board post 50. It has now been confirmed that Alters of Lilith along with a Fog of War are going to be permanently unlocked for the season. Right now especially if you're playing softcore, any completion that you have is already good and will be transferred over. But you need to log in on July 18th to every character possible as of July 18th when the season 1 pre-patch comes out. If you log into a character, any unlocked progress it has propagates to the rest of your account. You only need to do this once, and assuming that you've unlocked absolutely everything on one character, once you log into that character, you're good. Keep in mind for hardcore players, your character must be alive so that you can log in on July 18th. Don't go during anything risky like fighting Uber Lilith.

3. Pick the Best Class Build

To ensure a strong start and maximize your progress, it's essential to pick the best Diablo 4 Season 1 build. But before making a decision about your Season 1 build, take the time to research and explore each class available in Diablo 4. Familiarize yourself with their unique abilities, playstyles, and synergies. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each class and assess how they align with your preferred gameplay experience. Understanding the classes' mechanics will help you make an informed decision when crafting your Season 1 build.

4. Reveal the Map

Now when it comes to exploration, the map begins covered in a Fog of War, and currently, this is character bound. As of a Season 1 patch, it's going to become a countdown and all revealed areas will propagate to every character on your account, as well as any renowned granted for the exploration. Therefore, you should explore everything and reveal all the areas of each zone. Sometimes it'll be pretty obvious and other times you're going to have to hunt around on the map a bit. If you want to know more about the locations for Alters of Lilith and zones on the map, there are several guides over at Maxroll.gg that can help, and there are also a lot of resources that will help in your Seasonal Journey such as completing side quests strongholds and dungeons to fill out your codex, because as far as we can tell right now, you're going to need to re-unlock all the waypoints on your seasonal character, you will also need to complete any new side quests to get your renown to max level. You'll need to recomplete every dungeon to fill out your codex and the strongholds will still be there which is both a blessing and a curse. A curse because some of them have waypoints which won't automatically be unlocked, and a blessing because the strongholds can be really good exp and help you level up.

Part of the reason this is important is because of how renowned level works in Diablo 4. 

• Level 1 requires 200 renown and gives you a skill point. 

• Level 2 requires 300 and gives you a potion slot for a total of 500. 

• Level 3 requires 400 and gives you another skill point. 

• Level 4 requires 500, which gives you max obols. 

• Level 5 requires 600 renown for a grand total of 2000 and gives you paragon board points. 

If you have all of the permanent account-bound progression at the start of Season 1, there are 76 areas in the Fractured Peaks and 28 altars, giving 660 total renown. There are 51 areas in the dry steppes and 33 altars, 585 total renown. There are 56 areas and 34 altars and Hawezar, 620 total. 54 areas and 31 altars in Kehjistan, 580 total. 70 areas and 34 altars in Scosglen for a massive 690. All of this exceeds the 500 total renowned threshold for level 2, but falls short of a renowned threshold for level 3. 

• Fractured Peaks 76 Areas (380) 28 Altars (280) = 660 total

• Dry Steppes 51 Areas (255) 33 Altars (330) = 585 total

• Hawezar 56 Areas (280) 34 Altars (340) = 620 total

• Kehjistan 54 Areas (270) 31 Altars (310) = 580 total

• Scosglen 70 Areas (350) 34 Altars (340) = 690 total

You're effectively starting your character with 5 extra potion slots and 5 extra skill points. As you complete a few things in each zone, you will rapidly get more skill points and more character progression. If you want to level as efficiently as possible, you'll want to start in the fractured peaks as that zone doesn't really have a minimum level requirement. Then move on to Scosglen, the minimum level requirement is around 10. From there, you kind of continue down and around moving through the dry steps, Hawezar and finally ending in Kehjistan. Though do keep in mind that certain subzones within an area may have a higher level requirement, so always refer to your world map. In general, as you're completing zones, everything scales up to your level. However, things have a minimum requirement that they won't go below. If enemies are too much higher level than you, not only are you not getting optimal XP, but you may struggle to clear mobs entirely. In general, you should try to find enemies that are 3 levels above you, which means that not only can you go to these zones a little early. But if you ever want to do a stronghold, the enemies are above your level thus giving optimal XP.

That’s everything you need to do before Diablo 4 Season 1 release. Season 1 is kind of a fresh start, your character, gear, levels and stash do not carry over. However, there is a little bit of renown and quality of life that does carry over. Playing a seasonal character means you get access to the Season Journey which has some unique cosmetics. Access to the Malignant Hearts, a brand new system that offers quite a bit of power. Also, there are uniques and legendary aspects that are coming as part of a seasonal patch. In fact, it's part of this pre-season patch on July 18th, these will be active in the Eternal Realm immediately and available to everyone. But the Malignant Hearts and any other season-specific content will only be available on July 20th, two seasonal characters, this means if you want to keep playing your character in the Eternal Realm, you're perfectly able to. But if you plan to play the season, you should absolutely do these things to be prepared.