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.