It seems crazy, it seems so uncharacteristic of what we’ve come to expect from the Diablo IV team, but I’m convinced it’s happening, for reasons including the following:
- The leak of the internal 2.5.0 testing build’s name back in August - “2.5.0 - Paladin”. 2.5.0 is season 11 for those that aren’t counting.
- Season 11, as currently announced, doesn’t make any sense. Barely any seasonal content, yet extensive system-level changes which are clearly expansion-level. It doesn’t look like any season we’ve had before with the exception of one - season 6, which launched with Vessel or Hatred.
- Season 10 is 10 days shorter than the current average season length. And season 11 doesn’t just go live on the same day as The Game Awards, it’s also, for the first time in 11 seasons, launching at a completely different time of day - immediately after The Game Awards, so ~ 10 hours later than the usual 10/11 PST launches.
- A streamer that I won’t mention, but one of the streamers that saw future stuff behind closed doors earlier in the year, expressed on their stream after the S11 reveal that they were surprised that these combat and itemisation changes were coming in S11, as their “understanding was that they were coming in the second expansion”.
- Jez Corden’s tweet on 11/20 about it being “time to reinstall Diablo 4” , and when asked if that meant there was going to be an Expansion tease at the TGA’s, he replied “yes, but also more”.
- Blizzard is Microsoft now. And Microsoft loves a shadow drop. Whether it’s Oblivion Remastered, FFXVI Xbox, Hi-fi Rush etc.
- Websites like Wowhead not releasing a datamine for the season 11 PTR, a break from their usual coverage. There’s one precedent for this, and that was the Vessel of Hatred “early access period”, where Blizzard placed an embargo on sites like Wowhead releasing data-mined details ahead of release.
None of this is conclusive, and I’m not suggesting it is, but there’s an awful lot of circumstantial evidence all pointing in one direction.
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That would be great. We can skip S11 then.
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Ok, *significantly less seasonal content than the level we’ve come to expect 
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No, more charactersssssssssss
I feel like a tinfoil hat is required before reading this thread. 
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Incorrect. This is more like S4, which began a 2-season prep for VoH. I don’t dispute anything else you said. Fairly solid conspiracy theory. I’ll give you a highfive if you’re right.
Dropped a like for the name 
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(Thanks man!) Yeah, season 4 is admittedly the other one that this looks a little bit like, but in my conspiracy theory headcannon, even season 4 had significantly more new “juicy” content to engage with than this one, namely, the reworked helltide.
This feels way closer to “season of hatred rising”, reworks to plenty of existing systems, and a light tokenistic narrowly scoped seasonal activity (realmwalker / lesser evil stuff) that doesn’t need to be significant because most people will be playing the new campaign.
This isn’t a hot take.
This is a delusional take.
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It can’t be a shadow drop. There’s no way they’d release an expansion pack without any marketing
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But, but what if they did do it? Pog
Reality itself would unfold
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You know what I know launches Dec 12….POE2.
The only thing dumber than a midnight launch of this boring season is to surprise launch an expansion no one will even see because you stupidly launched your season at midnight.
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Not a chance with these bozo’s.
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But if you could play Paladin next week would you? gazes at you sideways
This thread? A tinfoil hat is needed to read a lot of junk that gets posted around here. There’s just no way these trippy ramblings are being made from humans of sound mind and body.
Unless they’ll release the pally for free, it will be viewed as a failure.
But hey, if you wanna hype people up again just to be disappointed, then yeah, keep spreading the new class rumours.
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Who knows? Maybe your song convinced them that we do, in fact, need a Pally. Right now!
I would be surprised if they managed to do this, but pleasantly surprised. 
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There might be a chance they release a new class (paladin) for $15 but it was already said that the next expansion will arrive in 2026. Blizzard expansions also heavily rely on and utilize marketing in advance, with amazing CG trailers etc. to build hype.
I think it’s evident there will be a tie-in with a TGA announcement, but I would be extremely surprised if an entire expansion gets released, unless it’s like D3’s 2nd expansion, where they’ve cancelled it mid-development and are just releasing what they’ve developed so far.
My theory is that the expansion was delayed at some point, so rather than hold on to these upcoming S11 features/changes until expansion 2 and making us wait essentially 2 years without major changes, they’re releasing them now, while saving other changes, like the skill tree rework and other things (loot filter?) until expansion 2, especially if expansion 2 might not release until October 2026. My assumption is after Blizzcon, which is in September.
Personally, I’m always going to expect the least, so I’m just expecting a teaser trailer, which might confirm or tease a paladin-type class, maybe Tyrael and angels, but that’s it.
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Pony club removed by staff sad panda
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