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For the actual historical event, see Tristram#The Darkening of Tristram.
"The past is never far in these parts... Cultists have delved through the remnants of Adria's belongings and discovered the secret to reviving her memories. For a fleeting time, this town will appear as it was many years ago..."

- In-game description(src)

Darkening of Tristram (also known as Anniversary Dungeon) is limited-time event in Diablo III (only occurs in January of each year starting with 2017) that takes players back into the original 16 levels of Diablo I. It is available for both the PC and console versions, added in patch 2.4.3.[1]

Features

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The Butcher remastered in AD

The Anniversary Dungeon recreates most of the events, monsters, and levels of the original Diablo inside Diablo III.

Returning Boss Fights are The Butcher, Skeleton King, Lazarus and Diablo himself. In addition, every single Unique Monster from D1 can be found and killed, though they are mostly just buffed-up regular monsters with no affixes (and only a few have a single affix at their disposal). They always drop Magic Items of top tier from Diablo I, for example, King's Sword of Haste, Archangel's Staff of Apocalypse or Godly Plate of the Whale. These items don't really do anything except having descriptions.

Monsters in Anniversary Dungeon are the same as those in D1, but use the graphical assets from D3 with only slight recolor. Some of them do have their old abilities, and some do not. Those monsters which do not have a direct equivalent in D3 use graphics of the closest possible match (for instance, Winged Demons use graphics of Winged Talus).

The Dungeon is 16 levels deep, divided into 4 sections as the original game is (Catacombs are replaced with nephalem ruins, Caves with mines and Hell with Halls of Agony visuals). Any character can enter it: there is even an achievement (challenge for consoles) and reward for beating it in one go with a level 1 character.

All quests from D1 return, but most have been altered and simplified. For example, Poisoned Water only involves finding a Resplendent Chest in the Dark Passage. Player does not encounter all of them at once. Unique quest rewards, such as Ring of Truth, are dropped in form of Magic Items with unique graphics and text, but hardly any gameplay use at maximum level.

NPCs such as Pepin, Griswold, Farnham and Ogden appear in their corpse (later ghost) form.

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The Dungeon is accessed via a portal in The Old Ruins of Tristram, next to the fountain, and is only accessible in Adventure Mode.

Rewards

Rewards for completing the dungeon include banner elements (for killing all 4 bosses: Dark Lord, Archbishop Lazarus, Skeleton King and The Butcher), as well as:

Pets

  • The Butcher, modeled after Butcher: obtained for clearing Anniversary Dungeon with a fresh character in one go.
  • Royal Calf, obtained through a semi-secret event line.

Transmogrification weapons

There are two, modeled after The Butcher's Cleaver and Wirt's Leg.

The Butcher's Cleaver is looted from the Butcher (it's a Magic quality item).

Wirt's Leg is awarded for the same event line as Royal Calf.

Portraits

Two portraits are rewarded, angelic and demonic versions of Life and Mana orbs.

Portraits require the player to kill every single Unique monster (40 in total) and to collect all Cultist Pages.

Broken down by levels, the unique monster list is (in addition to 4 mandatory bosses):

Legendary Gem

Completing the Dungeon also rewards a Legendary Gem, Red Soul Shard, that fits into the Helmet slot, reminiscent of Diablo's Soulstone (into which it will transmog the helmet).

Gameplay

Visual

Compair

Comparison Screens (Console Edition)

One of the biggest things players will notice when entering Tristram from Old Tristram is the Pixelated Rendering Effect, distorting much of the game's high details to look dated and old. For PC players, their Status HUD will be changed to look much like Diablo I did. Frame rate was also modified to be 25~30 FPS, giving it a choppy animated effect much how animations looked in the olden days. Zoom does not work as well.

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"New" HUD for the event

Another large change is the player character themselves. Much like the old game, players will move on a hard cardinal 8 directional movement system. For console users, player models still face the 8 directions but will still have the fluid full range motions. Players will also no longer use a running animation, sticking to a walking animation. They are still able to move at full speeds, but unable to actually use the walking speed. Console players still have access to the Dodge Roll ability. Since Followers don't have a walking animation, they will run normally.

One of the more subtle changes are things like lightening effects being thinner and dimmer in detailing

Audio

Music while in New Tristram will play Tristram's original town song, while in the Labyrinth will play area specific music, depending what area you're in. While exploring the Labyrinth, gold drops will play a heavier jingle sound. Some elemental attacks have different audio cues, like the Wizard spell Spectral Blade using the Thrown Blade rune is much quieter.

Achievements

There are a number of achievements that related to this event. A few are as follows (some may differ between Pc's Achievements and Console's Challenges): The Halls of the Blind (Visit the Halls of the Blind), The Chamber of Bone (Visit the Chamber of Bone), Pssst... Over Here... (Obtain Wirt's Leg), Champion the Townsfolk (Kill 20 Unique Monsters from the Labyrinth), Thank Goodness You've Returned! (Kill all 4 Bosses in The Darkening of Tristram event), Protector of Tristram (Kill all Unique Monsters in the Labyrinth), I Sense a Soul in Search of Answers (Collect all the Cultist Pages from the precursor event), The Dark Passage (Visit the Dark Passage), and An Eerie Red Glow Blurs Your Vision (Kill the Dark Lord in a solo game starting with a Level 1 in The Darkening of Tristram event).

Development

The idea for the dungeon began with the desire to incorporate Diablo I music into Diablo III, featuring in Adventure Mode. Its design has been described as "scope creeping" (constantly adding new content into a project). The user interface for the mode was designed by Josh Manning on his own time.[1]

Images

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 2016-11-07, Diablo III: Diablo 20th Anniversary Panel (BlizzCon 2016). YouTube, accessed on 2016-11-07
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