Hero Siege Season 10: Ebontharn Launches 21 August

Hero Siege's tenth season, "Ebontharn", goes live on Friday 21 August 2026 at 13:00 GMT. It is the largest structural change the game has had in years: Nightmare difficulty is gone, two paid Acts and four paid classes become free for everyone, every class gets a second talent tree, and the skill, collision and pathing systems have been rewritten from scratch.

When does Hero Siege Season 10 start?

Season 10 "Ebontharn" begins on 21 August 2026 at 13:00 GMT, the same 13:00 GMT slot Panic Art Studios used for Season 9 "Incarnation" back on 3 April 2026. Local equivalents:

The difficulty system is being rebuilt

This is the headline change. Nightmare difficulty has been removed, and with it the old Hell 1-5 tier ladder. Instead of grinding the same campaign across escalating difficulties, you now level a character from 1 to 100 in a single Normal playthrough. Completing that campaign unlocks Hard and Inferno, which become the endgame difficulties.

The practical effect is that the campaign is no longer something to skip. Acts VIII and IX are part of the mandatory path rather than optional side content, so a fresh character actually sees the whole world before hitting endgame.

Act VIII and Act IX are free for everyone

Panic Art Studios is moving away from the paid-Act model. Act VIII "Gates of Valhalla" becomes free, and the brand-new Act IX "Ebontharn" ships as free base content rather than DLC. Players who already bought Act VIII receive compensation.

Act IX brings new zones, including the River, the Village of Lamia and the Valley of Spirits, with the Ebontharn area itself unlocking after you defeat Odin. Three new Uber Bosses arrive alongside it: Phantom Leviathan, Captain Grimtide and the Blood Maiden.

Four classes become free

Four previously paid classes are now part of the base game:

• Marauder
• Plague Doctor
• Shield Lancer
• Jötunn

Anyone who already owned them receives cosmetic compensation rather than a refund. Combined with the free Acts, Season 10 effectively collapses most of Hero Siege's DLC wall.

Every class gets a second talent tree

All classes have been reworked, and each now has two talent trees instead of one. The stated goal is to make distinct archetypes viable within a single class, damage-focused, tanky, elemental or summoner, without forcing you onto a different hero.

Progression breadth grows to match: 100+ new Ether nodes and 600+ new Incarnation nodes, with saved allocation schemes for Skills, Ether and Incarnation increased from 5 to 8 loadouts each.

Quality of life: relics, stash and loadouts

• A free Relic Storage tab, plus a new relic collection system that unlocks titles and achievements.
• Maximum stash tabs raised to 20.
• A new paid Tarot Card inventory tab for players who want it.
• 8 saved loadouts per tree, so swapping between a farming setup and a boss setup no longer means respeccing.

Performance: a rewritten backend

Season 10 also lands a large technical pass. The skill and collision systems have been rewritten, monster AI and pathing rebuilt, and client-side projectile collision removed in multiplayer to cut latency. Zone generation is faster too. The target is holding a stable frame rate in the dense, high-monster-count situations where Hero Siege has historically dropped frames.

What it means for Season 9 players

As with every Hero Siege season rollover, the seasonal realm resets and Season 10 starts on a fresh economy. If you are still playing Season 9 "Incarnation", the week before launch is the moment to spend down anything you were saving, our Hero Siege gold farming guide covers the Season 9 methods that still apply until the 21st. Expect the farming meta to shift once the new difficulty structure and the reworked talent trees are live.