As players have come to expect from both Diablo and other RPGs, Diablo 4 will have a hardcore mode. That's the mode where if you die, you die. You lose everything; your save file gets deleted and all your hard work goes up in digital smoke. And Diablo 4's hardcore mode doesn't care whether death comes from a demon or another player. Death is final, regardless of its source.

When asked by a player, "If you're playing hardcore and you die in PvP, is it permadeath or..?" Adam Fletcher, global community director for the Diablo franchise, had a single-word answer: "Permadeath."

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So, hardcore players would do well to avoid Diablo 4’s PvP areas. The good news is that fighting other players in Diablo 4 is completely opt-in. There are designated areas where players can hurt other players, and you can simply avoid those areas to avoid getting ganked.

The main area for Diablo 4 PvP will be inside Arenas, which are accessed via Arena Portals in the overworld. Here, players can engage in a variety of different game modes. Free-for-All just pits every player against one another until only a single player is left standing. Team Deathmatch breaks players into teams until only a single team survives. Control Point tasks teams with controlling areas of the map, while Domination makes it so captured control points must be defended from the enemy team. Capture the Flag is the classic game mode where players grab the enemy’s flag and return it to their base to win.

There’s also another area where players will engage other players. The Fields of Hatred are intended as an end-game area where you’ll fight both demons and other Nephalem. The point is to go in, kill demons for shards, and then extract to cash in those shards for cosmetic rewards. The catch: other players can see when you have shards and can kill you to loot them from your corpse.

Like the Arenas, the Fields of Hatred is an entirely opt-in area, so if you don't want to fight other people you can just stay where it's safe. And if you're a hardcore player, you'll almost certainly want to avoid the Fields of Hatred. Associate game director Joseph Piepiora has already warned us that the Fields of Hatred is "not designed to be fair," and your survival will often be determined by the number of potions you have and whether you get the drop on your opponent.

Diablo 4 arrives on June 6. Players looking to get an early look can take part in the Mother's Day beta weekend, which will run from May 12 to May 14.

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