Blizzard Entertainment has told NME that although Diablo 4 suffered a number of “frustrating” technical issues during its first beta, the experience will “make the actual launch of the game that much better”.
On Friday (March 17), the first beta test for Diablo 4 kicked off for anyone who pre-ordered Diablo 4 or received a beta code through a promotional deal.
However, the test was plagued with technical issues — long queue times and server downtime were prominent during the first day, with regional issues affecting European servers on Saturday (March 18).
The beta comes to an end later today (March 20), and while the issues have largely been resolved, some fans haven’t been able to play through as much of the beta as they were expecting.
Speaking to NME‘s Jake Tucker, Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson touched on how the beta will be used to pave the way for next weekend’s open beta, along with the game’s full launch.
“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,” shared Fergusson. “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,” he continued. “Sometimes as a player it can be a little frustrating, but they have to recognise that they’re helping us make the actual launch of the game that much better.”
Diablo 4‘s open beta will begin on March 24, and will run until March 26. After that, the game will launch in full on June 6.
Elsewhere in our interview, Fergusson revealed that the game’s classes shouldn’t always feel like they are balanced equally.