Diablo 4 is revamping how it handles items, and part of that overhaul means players will soon be able to trade some (though not all) of the game's most powerful items.

As detailed in the most recent Diablo 4 Campfire Chat, Blizzard is looking to focus on quality, not quantity, when it comes to Diablo 4's items come the release of the game's Season 4 update on May 14. That means reducing the number of Legendary and Rare items that drop and the number of affixes on them, but increasing both the strength and the relevancy of the affixes on items that players do find. Playing on World Tier 3 will now always reward Sacred items (instead of only sometimes) and World Tier 4 will always reward Ancestral items, which should make progression smoother. The changes are game-wide, and not just to the game's Seasonal Realm.

That is all to say that items in Diablo 4 are about to become individually much more powerful and more consistently relevant for a player's chosen class and build. It's for that reason it's a little surprising that Blizzard additionally announced players will soon be able to trade Legendary and Unique items, something that has been reserved for Rare items since launch. Making any crafting modifications to the items will still make them account-bound, but base-level Legendary and Unique items will be tradeable.

"This is a big change for us…We think this does a great job of making sure the trade economy is still interesting and that when you're looking for a specific item or an item has dropped for you that a friend can use, this is going to be a lot easier for you to hand those things around now," Joe Piepiora, Diablo 4 associate game director, said during the livestream.

There is one caveat to Legendary and Unique item trading: Uber Uniques, the game's most powerful and hardest to find items, will still not be tradeable.

"Those are the most powerful items, and if you want those, you're going to have to go find them yourself," Charles Dunn, Diablo 4 class game designer, said.

That's probably for the best, as changes are coming to Uber Uniques, too. They'll soon be able to drop from monsters level 55 and up, which will go nicely with recent endgame charges that make it so specific Uber Uniques can be target-farmed and new Uber Uniques can be crafted from unwanted ones. There will even be a new Uber Unique coming in Season 4, Tyrael's Might: a chestpiece that causes skills to unleash a barrage of holy damage while at full life.

Being able to trade powerful items, though not the most powerful ones, is a major shift, but there are plenty of additional item changes coming to Diablo 4 as well. A new crafting system, Tempering, will let players add affixes to items, and yet another endgame crafting system, Masterworking, will increase the power of those affixes. Major tweaks to salvaging equipment, gems, and crafting materials are also coming as part of Season 4 to reduce the amount of inventory clutter and simplify the experience. One nice change for min-maxers is that there will be a gold cap added to rerolling item affixes at the Occultist. While the max-price will still be high, the amount of gold needed to continue shooting for a perfect stat roll will no longer scale infinitely.

As revealed during the livestream, Diablo 4 Season 3 will be extended for several weeks and last until May 14, the same date Season 4 starts. The change is to allow the development team more time to implement feedback from the game's new public test realm ahead of Season 4's release. Diablo 4 will launch on Xbox Game Pass on March 28, the first Activision Blizzard title to do so following Microsoft's acquisition of the publisher in 2023.