Microsoft is offering a free 10-hour Diablo 4 trial for Xbox players this weekend. The trial is part of Xbox’s Free Play Days promotion which lets Game Pass subscribers try out the full versions of selected games for free each weekend. Thankfully, Diablo 4‘s 10-hour freebie won’t require a Game Pass membership but the playtime is very limited, especially for an action-RPG that dozens of hours of gameplay.
Free Play Days officially kicked off yesterday and will run until Sunday, 22 October, where Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S players will get free access to a 10-hour trial of Diablo 4. That should give players enough time to play through a sizeable chunk of Act 1, which is packed with content on a massive map to explore.
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The vampire-themed second season of Diablo 4 is currently live and so far, the reception has been a lot more positive than season 1 which launched with major backlash from the community for its numerous changes that nerfed classes, rearranged the UI and generally made the endgame grind a lot more tedious. Most of those issues seem to have been remedied in season 2, titled Season of Blood, though we’ll have to see how Blizzard Entertainment handles other post-launch content going forward.
The Diablo 4 trial also arrives shortly after Microsoft officially completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, made possible by the greenlight given by the UK regulator, the CMA. The Diablo franchise is now owned by Microsoft alongside a number of other IPs including Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, Overwatch and much more.
As for when Xbox players can expect Diablo 4 to drop on Game Pass, there might be some bad news. Xbox boss Phil Spencer previously stated that it will only begin adding Activision Blizzard’s games to Game Pass starting sometime in 2024, so it might be a long wait before the library gets an influx of Activision-published titles.
Diablo 4 is available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Source: Video Games Chronicle
