Blizzard Entertainment says Diablo 4 will have a much smoother launch when it arrives in June after taking a lot of feedback into account from the recent early access beta. The company also says that it was quick to respond to criticisms surrounding the last beta and will make the necessary improvements to ensure a better experience for next weekend’s open beta, where the game will be available to several more players.
Ahead of its release on 6 June, Diablo 4 held an early access beta last weekend for players who pre-ordered the game or managed get their hands on a code. Feedback was mainly very positive with many fans praising the game’s atmosphere, storytelling, gameplay and stylish presentation. However, players initially ran into annoying server issues on the first day which prompted Blizzard to make quick fixes.
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Speaking to NME in a recent interview, Diablo general manager Rob Fergusson stated that the company was taking all the necessary steps to ensure that the open beta next weekend as well as the game’s launch will be a much smoother experience:
“The word beta nowadays has kind of been misconstrued, where people start calling things beta that’s [actually] a marketing beta, and it’s just another term for a demo. That’s not our case at all. Our beta is actually us testing our technology – especially on the server side. We had a little bit of a rocky start on Friday. We put out six hotfixes over the weekend, we solved dozens of issues and all of that work is going to pay off next weekend and then pave it for launch.”
“Sometimes as a player it can be a little frustrating,” Fergusson added. “But they have to recognise that they’re helping us make the actual launch of the game that much better.”
Diablo 4 requires players to always be online, a first for the action-RPG series since it doesn’t feature an offline mode like previous games. This has been met with a divisive reception from the community, especially solo players who often treat the Diablo games as single-player adventures. Thanks to the MMO-lite features, it’s possible to now run into several players on a server but according to early impressions, it’s not too intrusive yet. We’ll have to see how the open beta turns out as more players will be able to access the game.
Diablo 4 launches on 6 June 2023 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Check out the open beta gameplay trailer below.
Source: NME
