Diablo 4’s Secret Cow Level Mystery Just Had A Major Breakthrough

The hunt for Diablo IV’s secret cow level is heating up, as a player has gained access to a mysterious new cellar that just may be the key to unlocking the latest incarnation of Blizzard’s long-running gag.

As explained by Wowhead, back around Diablo IV’s launch, players found evidence of what appeared to be a collection of quest items, including a key, related to unlocking the game’s secret cow level. Despite Blizzard’s insistence that such a level didn’t exist (a denial that is at this point a Diablo cow level tradition), the items in question were obviously important, as items like the Bloody Wooden Shard and Musty Tome were references to items used to access the cow level in Diablo II. But the question of how to find the needed items, and what exactly they did, still remained.

Now, after four months of farming, overcoming hidden in-game timers that make it so the needed items can only be acquired by each player once per week, and killing exactly 666 cows, a player by the name of Grandpa Joe has acquired all three items, cleansed them at the ox statues in the city of Ked Bardu, and acquired a Strange Key. That key, in turn, has unlocked a previously inaccessible location, the Forlorn Hovel.

Inside the hovel is a group of cows. Killing all the cows in the hovel will drop a Stamina Potion, seemingly a nod to Diablo II’s Cow King, which drops several Stamina Potions when killed. Consuming the potion currently grants a 5-minute buff that doesn’t appear to have any obvious effects. Grandpa Joe notes that it’s currently unclear if the Forlorn Hovel is itself the secret cow level or if the mystery continues.

“We don’t know yet if this is the actual cow level or just another step in the chain,” Grandpa Joe writes in the description of the YouTube video where the Forlorn Hovel is first opened. “Time to drink a lot of gross milk, I guess.”

The secret cow level is a Diablo-franchise tradition, first appearing in Diablo II, where it was one of the game’s best farming locations, and again in Diablo III in the form of the Not The Cow Level and its offshoot, the colorful and cute secret Pony level Whimsyshire. Whether or not the secret cow level can be found within Diablo IV still remains to be seen, but players are certainly closing in on whatever secrets there are left to discover.

In other Diablo IV news, Season 2 is now in full swing, introducing a new seasonal questline and vampiric powers for players to experiment with. The new season additionally introduced a major patch that brought sweeping changes to game balance, the endgame grind, and inventory management. Diablo IV is also now on Steam, becoming the second Blizzard game, alongside Overwatch 2, to be added to Valve’s popular PC gaming platform.