When do you unlock the mount in Diablo 4?

Diablo 4 offers the series’ first open-world map, and you’re eventually going to unlock a sweet ride to take you from dungeon to dungeon. That’s right, Diablo 4 has gone full MMO and will give you your own horse to pal around with in the world of angels and demons.

Unfortunately, your steed isn’t immediately available for pickup when you first arrive in the capital city of Kyovashad. No, you’ll need to do some serious adventuring before you can travel faster than your legs alone will take you.

In this guide, we’ll tell you when you can unlock the mount quest (called “Mount: Donan’s Favor”), how to complete the quest, and how you can customize your horse.

When can you unlock the mount in Diablo 4?

Image: Blizzard Entertainment via Polygon

You won’t be able to unlock the horse mount in Diablo 4 until the beginning of Act IV.

When you first arrive in Kyovashad in the prologue, you’ll acquire three quests: one for Act I, one for Act II, and the other for Act III. You can tackle these quests in any order (although some orders will be easier than others), but you must complete all three act quests before you can move on to Act IV.

What is the mount quest in Diablo 4?

At the very start of Act IV, you’ll find yourself back in Kyovashad for the “Master’s Touch” quest. Complete the quest and, in addition to the next step in Act IV, you’ll also unlock “Mount: Donan’s Favor,” which is Diablo 4’s mount quest.

We were near level 30 when we got to this spot in the campaign, but your mileage will vary based on what difficulty you’re playing on and how much side content you do. But it’s absolutely worth ignoring side content until you get your horse, as moving from place to place gets significantly faster once you’re on a mount.

Now that you have the quest, all you need to do now is speak to the stable master in Kyovashad, who is standing near the bridge that leads into the city — where Lorath rode west all those hours ago. After a short conversation, you’ll get a popup alerting you to how the mount system works and you’ll get to pick a horse color.

Congratulations: you’re now licensed for the streets of Sanctuary and Highway 666.

How does the horse work?

Image: Blizzard Entertainment via Polygon

Now that you have your horse, you may be wondering “I’m an all-powerful demon killer and this is just a normal horse? What use is this to me?” Well, the horse is much faster than running around on foot in Diablo 4, and also allows you to easily grab Altars of Lilith or bypass groups of monsters that want to kill you — or that you just can’t be bothered to deal with. Most importantly, you’ll unlock the horse for all future characters on your account once you complete this quest, significantly speeding up those early levels.

The horse has the classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time energy system, where you can kick to make your mount giddy-up up to three times in a row, making it go faster. After a short cooldown, these charges will start to return to you one at a time, allowing you charge forward once again. While charging, you become Unstoppable (meaning you can walk or ride through monsters unimpeded), so it’s a good idea to always keep one of your charges in your back pocket in case you get swarmed by enemies.

If you do take some damage on horseback, a meter will fill up on the UI. If the meter reaches the top, you’ll get kicked off the horse and won’t be able to jump back on for a long cooldown.

Can you customize the horse?

At the stable, you can change the horse’s appearance and buy new options like saddles. It’s unclear if any of these changes upgrade the actual functionality of the horse, but all upgrades we ran across in the review period were purely cosmetic. We’ll update this guide if there are any ways to increase your horse’s speed or number of charges.

If you managed to get the Ashava trophy for killing the world boss at level 20 in the Server Slam, you can apply that at any stable once you’ve unlocked your horse.