Diablo IV will introduce a big change to item level requirements alongside the game's first season, associate game director Joe Piepiora has announced.

In an interview with the German site GameStar and later clarified on Twitter, Piepiora revealed that Diablo IV's Season of the Malignant patch will cap the level requirements needed to wear Sacred and Ancestral items. Sacred items, which begin to drop in World Tier III, will have a max level requirement of 60. Ancestral items, which only drop in World Tier IV, will have a max level requirement of 80.

While a little confusing at first, this doesn't mean that characters who aren't level 60 suddenly can't equip Sacred items. Instead, the change means that gear found by a player on a high-level character will be more easily shareable with lower-level characters. Previously, players at level 100 would only find gear requiring a level 100 character to equip, meaning it couldn't be thrown in the stash and saved for another, lower-level character. Come Season 1, if a level 100 Barbarian player finds a great Sacred item for a Rogue, the Rogue will only need to be level 60 to equip it.