Diablo 4 will add loot filters in Lord of Hatred… but what is a loot filter?

Blizzard has announced that Diablo 4’s upcoming expansion Lord of Hatred will bring with it — amongst all of the expected changes — loot filters. It’s an unassuming but exciting new feature that only got a single line in the press release: “A new Loot Filter empowers players to target desired gear more efficiently.” That’s great, but what are loot filters, anyhow? Other than one of the most requested quality of life features in a modern ARPG, loot filters make managing your drops so, so much nicer.

Imagine you are playing as your brand new Paladin class; you’ve already figured out the exact build you are looking to find gear for, but now it’s a matter of sifting through hundreds of drops, hoping to find that needle in the haystack that is The Item to complete your build. “There’s got to be a better way, right?” I hear you screaming to the heavens — and good news, there is! Loot filters fill this role specifically by removing the clutter of all of those useless loot drops, reducing visual noise so you can easily see exactly the loot you’re looking for. With a loot filter, the loot you aren’t interested in just doesn’t show up, so you don’t have to bother sorting through endless drops checking stats on every item: the game does the checking for you, based on filters you specify.

While we don’t know whetherthe Lord of Hatred loot filter will be as robust as Path of Exile‘s FilterBlade, being able to look at the FilterBlade website can give us an idea of what’s possible with loot filters. I found one of the nicest uses for filters is to make high value items stand out when they’re on the ground, using larger fonts and brighter colors for specific items or item types; these filters also usually allow you to hide items under a certain level or rarity, or sometimes even specific items that aren’t on a list you create. Combining these within the filter, after you massacre your tiny pile of the demon hoard, you should only see the items of value to you laying there. Should you need to look at the drops that are being filtered, typically there’s a button to toggle the filter off that can be pressed so everything becomes visible.

Diablo 4 has talked about helping players spend “less time sorting and more time slaying,” and a loot filter is exactly that. Once it’s set up, you’ll only see the drops you care about so you can get back to killing demons (for more drops you care about).

The setup can be complicated, which I know can be frustrating! Loot filters in other games have a lot of options so you can really dial in on finding the items you want. Taking one more look at the FilterBlade site, we can see that they offer loot filter options for each mode (Softcore, Hardcore, etc) which can then be filtered down based on strictness, and then further tailored to your needs. All of these options can be intimidating — but in the long run, loot filters make life in ARPGs much easier.

My hope is that Blizzard makes setting up loot filters in game easy, allowing for a decent premade filter and then an in depth option for those of us who want to tinker. That way everyone can enjoy the quality to gameplay that filters can bring, no matter how in depth you want to be!

Loot filters are coming to Diablo 4 in the Lord of Hatred expansion, which is due out on April 28, 2026.