At this year's BlizzCon event, Blizzard revealed a formidable new endgame event coming to Diablo 4 called the Abbatoir of Zir. Set to go live on December 5 as part of patch 1.2.3, this event sees players tackling a set of dungeons designed to push your character to the limit, offering "permanent and evergreen endgame challenges."
The challenging nature of Abbatoir of Zir was reiterated by popular Diablo 4 streamer Wudijo, who visited Blizzard to check out the endgame event. According to Wudijo, Abbatoir of Zir is difficult to the point that "you're not really supposed to finish the last tier".
Wudijo made the comment in his video preview of Abbatoir of Zir, and to be clear, he meant it mainly in a positive light. "Previously, people were complaining that, at least on the higher end, the game was too easy, there's not really much to grind for," he says near the start of the video. "The Abbatoir of Zir is going to change that."
Going forward, he states, "This is going to be some extremely high-end content," specifically "post Tier-100 Nightmare dungeon content". Comparing Abbatoir of Zir to the Greater Rifts seen in Diablo 3, Wudijo says that Abbatoir of Zir's difficulty scales up incredibly quickly. "It's not like Nightmare Dungeon tiers where you're going like 10 tiers higher [and it] doesn't make much of a difference. The scaling is incredible in that system. And as far as I'm aware, you're not really supposed to finish the last tier."
Wudijo reckons this is because monster levels go beyond level 154, and because of this it'll be much harder for players to stack armour and withstand enemy attacks. He also describes the enemies in Abbatoir of Zir as "much tankier" than those seen in previous Nightmare Dungeons. Consequently, even the game's current leading builds, namely Ball Lightning Sorcerers and HotA Barbarians, will struggle to complete the final challenge.
Given a bigger, more formidable endgame was one of our four main issues that Diablo 4 needed to fix, it sounds like Abbatoir of Zir will push hard in the right direction. Of course, the trick isn't simply making the game harder, it's getting the balance right for as many people as possible, and no doubt we'll hear complaints that Abbatoir of Zir makes the game too hard when Vessel of Hatred rolls around next year.
