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A new discovery in the hunt for Diablo 4’s secret cow level was found over the weekend, continuing the quest that started when the game was originally released.
I followed the full guide on the Discord, which took me all over the map looking for unique items that can only be found if you carefully follow each step. There’s no way of knowing you did anything right until the items drop. There’s a crow you have to chase that veers in and out of view until it eventually drops a skull, and then you have to take that skull to a brazier and light it on fire. Nothing in the game spells this out, nor confirms you did it correctly.
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Compared to the relatively simple puzzles people found around the game’s launch, Lord of Hatred’s are a little more elaborate. I spent 20 minutes killing corrupted Amazon enemies so I could wear a full set of their armor. And later, I used the new fishing mechanic to pull up a coffin that took me to a hidden dungeon.
Eventually you find a new relic that can be combined with those from the original quests using the new Horadric Cube crafting system. I never got around to collecting the cow milk and the Rusted Bardiche, so I had to stop there, but crafting them together gives you another relic, a cow-themed emote, and a cow-themed player title.
The final known step of the quest involves finding a boat and taking it to a cow island. A cutscene plays as you approach and then you’re left to ponder the humanoid cow statues, bizarre messages (“Do not feed the animals.”), and the lone cellar dungeon located there.
Nobody has any idea what to do next, but there are some things that suggest there’s more to be found. The cow island can trigger a popup notification with a row of portals on it, has a mysterious interactive bucket of milk, and is where you can catch a mythic-level fish that has a reference to Diablo 3 on its tooltip. The biggest clue, however, is an entry for a “Cow King’s Crown” helmet transmog in the wardrobe menu that no one has been able to unlock.
Even with full access to the Lord of Hatred files via datamining, the people on the cow level Discord aren’t confident enough to say the search is over for now. A new discovery or a patch containing a new step could come at any time now.
I’m hoping Blizzard isn’t just toying with us and that there is indeed a cow level of some sort in the game that we just haven’t found yet. It wouldn’t make a new loading screen hint say “there is no cow level” if there weren’t one, right? I don’t want to wait for a third expansion to finally see what horrors await in Diablo 4’s version of the series’ most iconic Easter egg.