The Open World

The areas

Hearthold is built on the lid of the first fire, and its warmth comes up through the whole vale: that is why the land round the town is full of monsters, and always has been. Long ago the Order of the Last Light set five Seals along one road round the vale, the Lastlight Road, with a wayshrine a day's walk apart. It runs out of Hearthold's north gate, and every act of the campaign is one stretch of it: 15 areas in all, three to an act.

Each area is one wide map you can cross in any direction, with woods, cliffs, earthworks, water or walls along the edge to keep you in. Walk out of the north gate, or step through Hearthold's wayshrine to any wayshrine you have lit. Every one of the campaign's 25 dungeons is a door somewhere on the road, a place with its own yard: a walled churchyard, a goblin warcamp behind its palisade, a keep inside its curtain wall, a gate of fused bone on the lava. There is no way down from the town itself.

• Act I. The Bramblewold, then The Dig-Scars, then Grukk's Marches. At its end Grukk holds the Seal of Earth.
• Act II. The Ashen Barrows, then The Cinder Flats, then The Boneyard. At its end Morvaine holds the Seal of Bone.
• Act III, The Rotting Fen. The Sluice, then The Low Fen, then The Sunken Bog. At its end Old Gutrot holds the Seal of Water.
• Act IV, The Fallen Fortress. The Ridge, then Pyrewick, then The Last Ridge. At its end Seraphel holds the Seal of Light.
• Act V, The Infernal Descent. The Stairhead, then The Rim, then The Caldera. At its end Vhoruun holds the Seal of Ash.

• The Bramblewold (Act I). The first stretch of the Lastlight Road: thorn hills, goblin camps, two dungeon doors.
• The Dig-Scars (Act I). Hills torn open by Grukk's diggers. Every shaft leans the same way.
• Grukk's Marches (Act I). The warband's moor across the road. Drums, a tithe ring, and Grukk's gate.
• The Ashen Barrows (Act II). A city of tombs half-sunk in grey ash. The dead walk the road here, all one way.
• The Cinder Flats (Act II). Burnt flats where the pyres never go out. A tomb avenue runs to the Hall of Whispers.
• The Boneyard (Act II). Morvaine's grounds: bone-yards, cairn rows and the toll bridge. The Sanctum's steps go down.
• The Sluice (Act III). A brick sluice holds the fen back, and ogres are hauling its plugs. The ferry sits on mud that was water last week.
• The Low Fen (Act III). The old causeway runs east and west over black water, and Krag's orcs hold it under the Order's own banners.
• The Sunken Bog (Act III). The last of the fen, where the water is warm and the bog witches stir their pots. The Wallow is at the lowest pool.
• The Ridge (Act IV). The foot of the Ridge: the Watch's outpost, the Order's own siege lines held by orcs, and the gatehouse road climbing under the wall.
• Pyrewick (Act IV). The Order's outer ward, given over to powder: kegs, fuses and trebuchets under the wall, and the stair tower of the Screaming Ramparts.
• The Last Ridge (Act IV). The head of the ridge: the Last Squire's chapel yard, the Quiet Bell, the throne over the Order's stair, and the Unsworn on its ring.
• The Stairhead (Act V). The Order's last stair comes down out of the throne room and stops at a ledge over the fire. Past the wayshrine the road only goes down.
• The Rim (Act V). A broken rim of basalt shelves stepping into the caldera, cut by a river of lava. Something unburnt keeps the cold side.
• The Caldera (Act V). The floor of the fire: obelisks calling up the Court, a Choir that never stops, a bastion of fused bone, and the last door down.

Wayshrines, roads and dungeon doors

• Wayshrines. Each area has one or two (one in Act I). Touch one to light it. From any lit wayshrine you can travel to every other lit one, or home to Hearthold.
• Roads out. A road leaves each area toward the next. Stand on it out of combat, with your party within twelve tiles, and it asks if you want to travel on.
• Dungeon doors. All 25 dungeons are doors in the wild. Stand on one out of combat and it asks whether to go in. The dungeon is the ordinary one, with its floors, its boss and its first clear. When it ends, a button takes you back to its door, and Hearthold is always an option too. In a party the leader takes the door and the whole party goes down together; a lair's den is still one hero at a time.
• Hearthold. Leaving by the gate or the wayshrine list ends the visit and keeps what you found.

Things to find

• Goblin camps behind palisades. Some hold a shieldwall around a war drum, others a warband at its fire. A cleared camp pays a chest.
• A shrine you can free for a blessing, ruins that spring ambushes when you reach their heart, and a ritual circle with totems to snuff before it finishes. Stopping it pays a chest.
• A beacon to hold: stand at the brazier to light it, then keep it lit through three waves. A thief runs for the edge with a cache; catch him in time for gold and an item.
• A lair in a cliff you can step into: a one-room den with its brood, a den mother whose guard you have to break, and a nest cache that pays a rare or better. It fills again within the hour.
• A named brute in each area, with a guaranteed rare or better drop.
• Packs wake by sight. Come within a few steps in view and a pack wakes; a question mark shows over a foe a moment before, and backing off in time cancels it. Your sellswords and pets never wake a pack on their own.
• A place you clear stays quiet for 60 minutes, then fills again.
• Each area's fights are tuned to pay about what the dungeon behind its door pays in the same time.

The wild remembers

• An area stays as you left it. Leave by a road, a dungeon door, a wayshrine, the road home or a town portal, and when you come back the map you uncovered is still uncovered, what you left on the ground still lies there, the foes you killed stay dead and the chests you opened stay open.
• Ground loot keeps. Each area keeps the newest 80 things lying on its ground; anything rare or better is never pushed out to make room.
• The hour turns. When the hour turns while you're away, the fire's warmth sends new packs and fresh chests into the area. What lies on the ground lasts one hour more, then it's gone (a unique you left behind is sent to Lost & Found instead).
• Never reset: the map you've uncovered, the wayshrines you've lit and the places you've cleared (those fill again on their own hour, as above).
• A new game, a new wild. Start the game fresh after a break and the wild is laid out anew, like a new game in the old Diablo, but the wayshrines you've lit stay lit. That happens when you quit to the title on purpose, or come back after an hour and a half or more away. A reload, or a run waiting behind a town portal, carries on in the same wild.
• In a party you walk the party leader's wild: their map, their dead and their open chests. Loot that was yours stays yours and waits for you if you come back with them.

Emberfall

• Every hour, one area in each act burns: Emberfall. It turns ember-red and its title says so.
• Every pack in it gains a Champion, its foes stand a level higher, and its chests and guaranteed drops step up a rarity.
• The run's map plaque reads Emberfall while you are in it, and the full map wears an ember wash over the area.

The map

The minimap and the full map pin what the open world holds. Tap a marker on the full map for its name, and tap a lit wayshrine beside you to travel.