Why do Diablo 4’s seasons and battle pass require starting a new character?

polygon.com:

Diablo 4’s release seems to have gone very well for Blizzard, which boasted of its biggest launch ever after a huge (and weirdly scattershot) marketing blitz. But as the game approaches the introduction of its first season and its battle pass, a thorny communication problem looms.

New Diablo players (and those who didn’t get involved in seasonal play in earlier iterations of the game) have been shocked to discover that, in order to participate in seasonal content and make the most of the accompanying battle pass, they will have to make new seasonal characters and start leveling them from scratch. Not only that, but they’ll need to do so every three months if they want to join in future seasons.

Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson has been working hard in the replies on Twitter this week, attempting to clear up the confusion. Among other things, Fergusson has been called upon to explain that players’ current characters won’t disappear at the start of a new season — they’ll live on in what Blizzard calls the “eternal realm,” as will seasonal characters once a new season rolls around. He also stresses that players only need to complete the Diablo 4 campaign once, and can skip it in favor of more free-form leveling on subsequent characters.

But many are still confused and disappointed. “I’m a new Diablo player and a new dad. I only have maybe an hour a day to game, if that. So my current character is only level 11,” said one. “You’re saying I should basically not even play this game then right?”

The problem has arisen because seasons mean something different in Diablo than they do in the new generation of live-service games that Diablo 4 is attempting to join — and by combining these two things, Blizzard has set itself on