Diablo 4's rarest items have become a holy grail for its players, and I'm a little worried for them

A cultist from Diablo 4 wearing a mask.
(Image credit: Blizzard)

Last week Adam Jackson—the lead class designer for Diablo 4—tweeted out a list of the game's rarest items, and the internet has been acting very normal about it. Several of these items are references to gear from past Diablo games, such as the Harlequin Crest, and Jackson clarified that their drop rate is something of a grind within a grind

Each of these super-rare collector's pieces has a chance to drop in the place of another Unique, so you need to get lucky to even roll the dice. Baal help you if you're aiming for a specific one.

Instead of calming the rumour mill down, Jackson seems to have accidentally set players on a desperate scavenger hunt powered by false hope, as evidenced by a Reddit thread from user Shaka_Walls with the grim title: "You're vastly more likely to die falling out of bed than to get Shako." They plead: "It's just not going to drop for you. The chances are effectively 0%. Stop wasting your time."

This has been followed by another user, Tyzerk1925, asking if they could "target farm" a death by falling-out-of-bed. That can't be a good sign.

In the same thread, Kanenite3000 has been a devil whispering in the ear of loot-hunting hopefuls: "Fact. 90% of Diablo players quit farming just before a Shako is about to drop," calling to mind that one meme of a miner stopping just short of a hoard of diamonds.

Despite all of this, we still don't know the actual drop rate of this gear—which Jackson didn't reveal beyond it being "realllly rare". Still, you miss every shot that you don't take, and the temptation of theorycrafting a build that would jive nicely with one of these rare pieces is a potent carrot on a stick.

All this hype has me thinking that Lilith had it all wrong: if she wanted to corrupt humanity, all she had to do was dangle a pair of shiny keys in front of us and tell us we had a 0.1% chance of obtaining it. It would've worked a treat.

Harvey Randall
Staff Writer

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

Read more
Present-Plankton-734's impressive Path of Exile collection.
Path of Exile player casually posts mind-blowing collection of ultra-rare and out-of-print items, including a ring there's only 4 copies of in the world
Path of Exile 2 early access class key art
Unique items in Path of Exile 2 need to take more inspiration from Grim Dawn's diarrhea pants
An axe-wielding Enraged Headless Husk attacks a barbarian
Diablo 4 players pleasantly surprised to find the first boss of the new season is a challenge for once: 'it's nice to actually have to think and prepare for fights'
A Path of Exile 2 sorceress casting flaming skulls in a hellish landscape
Path of Exile 2 numberlord spends 16 straight days killing rare monsters to prove that a stat that makes loot better makes better loot
Diablo 4 boss loot tables - Duriel
Diablo 4 boss loot tables for the Season of Witchcraft
WoW Classic: Season of Discovery
World of Warcraft Classic’s Season of Discovery may be teasing a legendary weapon that players have speculated is in the game for two decades
Latest in RPG
kingdom come deliverance 2 thunderstone quest
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's masterful quest design can be summed up by one wonderfully weird search for a magic stone
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Latest in News
A gigantic terracotta sentinel made of living armor
Total War: Warhammer 3's army of Cathay has broken containment and is making its way to tabletop Warhammer at last
Two brightly colored stormtroopers dressed like Run-DMC stand in front of PAX Australia's WELCOME HOME banner.
Tickets for PAX Australia 2025 are on sale now
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm