Diablo 4 Leaderboards (What You Need to Know)

Diablo 4 Leaderboards Overview

Diablo 4’s leaderboards are highly anticipated and will be a staple of the hardcore experience.

Leaderboards were very important in Diablo 3, specifically after the release of Reaper of Souls.

Virtually the entire game revolved around grinding for gear and Paragon, and then pushing as far into the leaderboards as you could.

Here’s everything we know about Diablo 4’s leaderboards.

Will Diablo 4 have Leaderboards on release?

Diablo 4 will not have leaderboards on release. The end game will involve pushing Nightmare Dungeons which scale up to level 100, doing Helltide Events, and PvP.

While these events will be interesting, there will not be any leaderboards associated with them. Nightmare Dungeons are also not timed, however, there is a limit on how many times you can die and still complete the dungeon.

The lack of timers in Nightmare Dungeons severely limits any competitive play around them, as there is no damage requirement to be able to complete them.

When Will Diablo 4 Have Leaderboards?

Blizzard announced in a Developer Interview that they plan on adding leaderboards in Season 3 of Diablo 4. Considering that Seasons will last 3 months and the first season starts in July, this puts leaderboards coming out in January of 2024.

Hopefully, Blizzard will use this time to learn how players like playing and competing in Diablo IV, and will eventually come out with fun and engaging leaderboards.

How Diablo Leaderboards Work

Leaderboards have worked differently in each installment of the game. In Diablo 2 leaderboards were based entirely on the level of your character, and the first character to hit level 100 each season would be rank 1. In Diablo 3 leaderboards worked off of Greater Rifts, which scaled up to level 150.

Your rank was first decided by the highest level of Greater Rift you completed within the time limit, and then by the amount of time it took. In Diablo IV we do not yet know how leaderboards will work.

How Will the Delayed Leaderboards Affect the Game?

As someone coming from Diablo III, I am quite disappointed that D4 will be released without leaderboards. For me, they are an essential part of the game, and my method of play has always been driven by trying to climb the ranks. Leaderboards make you push your build and your gameplay to the absolute limit, and there is nothing more fun than achieving an extremely difficult push.

When I first started the game I couldn’t even get into the top 1000, but as I got better I started to climb. First getting rank 1000 and then rank 500 then rank 100. Finally, after many seasons of playing and studying the game, I eventually got to rank 1 on Barbarian Hardcore.

After all these years the main reason I keep going back to Diablo III is to get rank 1 again, and honestly, without the leaderboards I would have played way less D3 and I probably would not still be playing it. A lot of the top content creators for Diablo 3 first got to rank 1 and then became popular, as it’s a great indicator of a player’s skill and dedication.

The effects of not having leaderboards on release will not be felt by most players for a couple of months. While the game is still fresh and exciting, it won’t be something that most people miss. However as time goes on, I think players will start to wonder what they are even grinding for. The payoff in D3 was always to push leaderboards, and I am worried that D4 will be lacking this payoff for your grind.

This is a sentiment that has been expressed primarily by people coming from Diablo 3 as we have all grown to love that system, but as time goes on more people will want a way to show and express their skill.

I will say that Diablo 3 didn’t get its leaderboards until after the major expansion Reaper of Souls, so perhaps Diablo 4 will end up with a great competitive scene later on. I think the game will still be fun for a while without leaderboards, we just need to find ways to compete with each other in the meantime.

Check back later for more info on Diablo 4 leaderboards! For more guides and content, head to our Diablo 4 blog.