Make it three years in a row for Blizzard to bring around The Darkening of Tristram event to Diablo 3. Originally conceived as a cool tribute to the release of the original Diablo back in 1996, the event has morphed into a variation on the Greater Rifts currently found in the game, what with the randomly-generated tilesets, layouts, and monsters. However, if you’ve previously played The Darkening of Tristram, you know what to expect when you jump into the portal.
If you’ve already run through the event in previous years, there might not be much incentive to do it again (although come on, it’s Diablo!), but if you missed one of the achievements/quests, now’s your chance to rectify that. The portal will remain open until January 31 at 4pm PST.
If, by chance, you’ve never gotten the portal, here’s how: You’ll find special cultists in the game. Killing them will spawn a portal that takes you to a 16-level dungeon where you’ll encounter bosses and elements from the first game. On top of that, the game, UI, animation and graphics quality shifts back to 1996. There are a couple of quests and achievements to be had in this dungeon, whereby completing them nets you some cool swag, including a mini Butcher demon pet.
Of course, this won’t make up for the fact that we still don’t have Diablo 4 yet, but it’s (apparently) getting there.