Blizzard announces Diablo 4 closed beta for 2022
Blizzard has announced that die-hard Diablo fans will have the opportunity to participate in a closed beta of Diablo 4 this year, while a public beta will arrive in early 2023.
In a Blizzard blog post, the publisher announced that players who recently invested “a significant amount of time” playing the endgames of Diablo 2: Resurrected, Diablo 3, or Diablo: Immortal are eligible to participate in the test.
Unlike most betas, which give players access to the first few hours of the game, the Diablo 4 beta will do the opposite and drop players straight into the endgame. It’s available on all platforms – PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series, and PC – with cross-play and cross-progression.
“We decided to focus the closed beta on Diablo 4’s endgame offerings for a number of reasons,” Blizzard said in the post. “We don’t want to spoil the whole story of Lilith’s return to Sanctuary before publication; Players will experience a post-campaign Sanctuary during the closed endgame beta.
“Also, for many, the endgame is their favorite aspect of Diablo. We want to make sure it feels satisfying and doesn’t lack the challenging variety that can be experienced in many, many demon-slaying game sessions.”
Players who feel they’ve played enough Endgame Diablo lately will receive an email invitation to the beta, but only if their marketing options are enabled on Battle.net (see blog post for instructions).
This must be done by October 18th and invitations will be sent no later than November 18th. Blizzard said this is “the first of a few opportunities” to experience Diablo 4 ahead of the 2023 release date, and also confirmed that “public testing phases will begin early next year.”
Gamers recently had an unofficial opportunity to see Diablo 4 gameplay when joining Rockstar’s GTA 6 more than 40 minutes of gameplay was leaked online. However, Blizzard hasn’t been as quiet as Rockstar, releasing quarterly updates on what players can expect from the action RPG. While it will only feature five classes at launch, the developer has already confirmed that Diablo 4 will receive DLC for years.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll be talking about The Witcher all day.
https://www.ign.com/articles/blizzard-announces-diablo-4-closed-beta-for-2022 Blizzard announces Diablo 4 closed beta for 2022
