Diablo IV - out now

Blizzard announced that Diablo IV is coming to Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation®5, alongside versions for Windows® PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation®4, with cross-play and cross-progression enabled for all platforms in 2023

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Knoyleo wrote:Who changed the thread title?

GrinWithoutaKat wrote:So Diablo is a series that somehow passed me by. I played the original a couple of years ago but found it a bit dated. II and III are currently on sale and I was thinking of having another go. Now I don't think it's the sort of game you really play for the story, so would it be worth just playing III and skipping over II, even though I think it's considered the high point of the series?

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If this brief slice is meant to serve as a teaser for the foundations of that ambition, then Diablo IV seems on the right track. It's so far delivering on its promise of giving players far more agency than before in how they both play and build their favorite characters, while also providing more ways to tackle content and choose the activities that interest them first. That might not sound overtly original, but within the context of the series over the last decade it's a drastic and, so far, welcome departure that I'm both curious and excited to explore more of when Diablo IV releases on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PS5 in 2023.

Ultimately, Diablo 4 feels like a massively plussed-up version of Diablo 2, which is the best-case scenario for it, in my book. Not that it ignores Diablo 3 – there are clear notes taken from the best of that game too – but tonally and artistically, it leans more heavily into the Diablo 2 playbook. Regardless, this is going to be a huge game by any definition: the initial campaign projects out to about 50 hours based on my time with Act 1, plus the endgame stuff Blizzard has specifically focused on that we haven’t even seen yet, the opportunities to play as different classes and roll different builds within the same class, and the development team’s promise to keep feeding the community new content for years to come. Heaven help any game that ships anywhere near Diablo 4, because I know I’ll be too absorbed in my adventures in Sanctuary to care about anything else.

What I have tried, though, was a reassuringly single-player Diablo experience. One in which you can see a generational difference between it and the Diablo experiences that have come before. It's in how the game looks but also in how the game feels: like it's one big thing, one big world, and one with big ideas about how people collaboratively play it. There are still question marks but there are also now some answers, and perhaps the biggest one is whether Diablo 4 will be worth the wait, and on this evidence, yes, absolutely, it is.

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Activision Blizzard has announced open beta and early access dates for Diablo 4, ahead of the game's full launch on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC this June.

Diablo 4's open beta and early access are split across two weekends, starting with early access from 17th to 19th March. This session is exclusive to players that pre-purchase Diablo 4, while the open beta - which runs from 24th to 26th March - will be available to everyone.

Blizzard says the two sessions will offers players a "deep look into the early game including the Prologue and the entirety of Act 1", and a level cap of 25 will be in place. More details are set to be shared during a developer livestream scheduled for 28th February.