The Diablo 4 cow level isn’t real, but fans are still looking for it
Blizzard said the Diablo 4 cow level doesn’t exist even before the RPG launched, but hopeful fans aren’t giving up anyway. Director Rob Fergusson told Kinda Funny during an interview in May 2023 that the team decided against adding the series’ traditional cow level since they believed it didn’t fit with Diablo 4’s darker themes (thanks, Eurogamer).
“We really wanted to ground [Diablo 4] as much as possible,” Fergusson said at the time. “We’ve had some fun, but we wanted to make sure it felt authentic to the gothic, dark themes we had. And because of that, there’s no secret level in Diablo 4 that people might be looking for, as per previous games.”
Meanwhile, some dedicated and hopeful Diablo 4 fans on Reddit and Discord aren’t convinced. There’s at least one player-run cow level server on Discord, and the Blizzard partner community Sanctuary Server on Discord has a cow hunting channel now.
Reddit user Altnob completed a series of unusual quests that require you to use emotes at statues in certain locations in the expectation that it might lead to a new area. A red portal spawned at the end, similar to the portal that takes you to the cow level in previous Diablo games – but all they got was an achievement.
Frogbound, another Reddit user, took the cow hunt even further. They tracked down and marked the location of every cow in Diablo 4 and recorded their behaviors and interactions. Some notable finds include how they don’t respond to emotes as dogs do and don’t give the player any buffs or debuffs as other wildlife occasionally will.
They also drew lines around the eastern portion of Scosglen and said it looks like a cow head. There is an uncanny bovine look about the area, though Frogbound said it could just be them creating a “cowspiracy.”
The Reddit thread is full of similar instances, of players trying to find meaning in odd situations, missing cellars, or even just areas with an unusual concentration of cows. Some said the cow level might appear in future Diablo 4 updates, where Blizzard said they wouldn’t be quite so serious. Others are convinced we’ll get a chicken level instead, after the Diablo 4 KFC collaboration where Blizzard wanted you to eat a sandwich that had giant fried chicken slabs instead of buns.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF