Terror Zones, a new Diablo 2 Resurrected leveling path, are now live

If you’re bored of farming the same bosses over and over Diablo 2 Resurrected, you’ll probably want to try out Terror Zones, which offer a new way to level to 99 in patch 2.5 — now live. Terror Zones are all about variety: typically when you level in Diablo 2, you wind up farming the game’s biggest bosses — usually Baal, Diablo, and Nihlathak — repeatedly for experience and it can get pretty tedious. Diablo 3 solved this problem by adding Adventure Mode, but D2R takes a different approach with Terror Zones,  an invasion mechanic that converts existing zones in D2R into hellscapes with the challenge players crave, and the sweet XP that goes along with that.

But you’ll have to opt-in to playing Terror Zones: if you prefer leveling by farming bosses, you never have to step foot in a Terror Zone. To unlock the feature, you’ll have to defeat Baal on the character (and the difficulty) that you want to play Terror Zones on. Once you’ve met this requirement, when you’re in a Terror Zone-enabled game, every hour a specific zone will be the focus of the Burning Hell’s ire and more powerful demons and creatures will flock to that zone to wreak havoc — and give you a new option for challenging content. Yes, sucks to be the people who live there but that’s why it’s called a Terror Zone and not a basket of adorable fuzzy kittens zone.

Interested? Let’s go through all the details of what Terror Zones are and exactly how they work.

How do Terror Zones work?

When a zone comes under demonic assault and becomes a Terror Zone, the creatures attacking that zone will become more difficult based on the level of the character who started the game. If you’re level 22 and you start up a Terror Zone-enabled multiplayer session, the monsters will scale based on your level. If you leave the game and the highest level character is 23, the game will readjust to match that character’s level.

Monster scaling also depends on the game’s difficulty, and each difficulty has a level cap:

• Normal Difficulty
  • Base: +2 levels up to level 45
  • Champion: +4 levels up to level 47
  • Unique: +5 levels up to level 48
• Nightmare Difficulty
  • Base: +2 levels up to level 71
  • Champion: +4 levels up to level 73
  • Unique: +5 levels up to level 74
• Hell Difficulty
  • Base: +2 levels up to level 96
  • Champion: +4 levels up to level 98
  • Unique: +5 levels up to level 99

Only specific zones in each Act can be invaded by the Burning Hells and become Terror Zones, and in order to make use of those zones, you need to be able to reach them. So if your character doesn’t have access to a specific Act yet, then you won’t be able to visit Terror Zones  available there, even if you have Terror Zones enabled.

Here are all of the zones that can be Terror Zones:

• Act I
  • Blood Moor and Den of Evil
  • Cold Plains and The Cave
  • Burial Grounds, The Crypt, and the Mausoleum
  • Stony Field
  • Dark Wood
  • The Forgotten Tower
  • Jail
  • Cathedral and Catacombs
  • The Pit
  • Tristram
  • Moo Moo Farm
• Act II
  • Sewers
  • Rocky Waste and Stony Tomb
  • Dry Hills and Halls of the Dead
  • Far Oasis
  • Lost City, Valley of Snakes, and Claw Viper Temple
  • Arcane Sanctuary
  • Tal Rasha’s Tombs
• Act III
  • Spider Forest and Spider Cavern
  • Flayer Jungle and Flayer Dungeon
  • Kurast Bazaar, Ruined Temple, and Disused Fane
  • Kurast Sewers
  • Travincal
  • Durance of Hate
• Act IV
  • Outer Steppes and Plains of Despair
  • River of Flame/City of the Damned
  • Chaos Sanctuary
• Act V
  • Bloody Foothills
  • Frigid Highlands
  • Glacial Trail
  • Crystalline Passage and Frozen River
  • Arreat Plateau
  • Nihlathak’s Temple, Halls of Anguish, Halls of Pain, and Halls of Vaught
  • Ancient’s Way and Icy Cellar
  • Worldstone Keep, Throne of Destruction, and Worldstone Chamber

When you join a game, the current Terror Zone will show up in the chat box, and when it cycles the new zone will be announced the same way. If you manage to miss the announcement, there are quite a few visual cues to indicate where the current Terror Zone is. When browsing Waypoints, you’ll see an icon next to the Waypoint closest to the Terror Zone, and the name of the zone will be listed in a purple font. And when you’re in a Terror Zone, there are lots of effects that make it clear that you’re in a Terror Zone:

• Unique iconography next to a terrorized monster’s name
• On-screen text and messaging
• Special audio cue
• In-game text on the auto-map
• Unique environmental lighting
• Ember visual effects

Terrorize the Terror Zones for XP

All in all this is an interesting way to give D2R players some choice in terms of what content they run to get to level 99, while also giving players a choice of sticking to the original leveling system. If you like Terror Zones, they’re available for you to play, but if you prefer the original leveling grind, you never have to set foot in a Terror Zone. Plus they offer new challenges that will reward persistence and skill — and offer the loot and XP to go with it.

So good luck in your journey to level 99 in patch 2.5, now live.

Originally published September 7, 2022; updated September 26, 2022