BlizzardAt Long Last, The Beta For Diablo 4 Has Arrived, And While It Requires A Pre-order (or KFC Chicken Sandwich) To Access This First Weekend, The Game Has Enough People Clogging The Servers To Make Its Initial Launch Here A Sadly Familiar Sort Of Disaster.

The Good News Is That When You Can Play The Diablo 4 Beta, It Absolutely Lives Up To Expectations In Its Early Hours In Terms Of Gameplay, Aesthetics And Shockingly, Even Storytelling, Rising Above Past Installments.

It Was An Endless Pattern All Day Yesterday, I’d Get In, Play For A While, Then Get Booted (usually In The Middle Of A Dungeon With No Checkpoints).

The Game Would Freeze Up, I’d Quit And Log Back In Only To Find An Hour Or Two Of Wait Time Ahead Of Me.

It’s Maddening For A Game I Just Want To Play By Myself, But This Is 2023, And Such Games Barely Exist Without Online Login Requirements Anymore.

I Don’t Think I Need To Remind Everyone Of The Disastrous Error 37-laden Diablo 3 Launch Where The Game Was Rendered Non-functional.

In The First Thirty Minutes Of The Game, They’ve Already Given Us Two Of The Most Horrifying, Impressive Cutscenes Of The Entire Series So Far.

I Am Genuinely Interested In Lilith, The Daughter Of Hatred Who Inspires Unsettling Devotion In Humans, And Seems Removed From The Eternal Demon Vs. Angel War With Something…else Planned.

That Has Immediately Changed, Albeit Admittedly, Things Do Start Getting Into More Traditional Territory With Less Interesting Sidequests And Main Storyline Progression With Fewer Creepy Cutscenes.

It’s Always Hard To Judge Diablo Gameplay In The Very Early Stages Before You Have Many Skills And Good Loot, But At Level 15 (I’d Probably Be Beta Max At 25 Right Now Without All The Server Errors), I’ve Unlocked A Good Amount Of Rogue Skills, Who Plays Like An Expected Mix Of The Original Rogue Class And D3’s Demon Hunter, And Have Even Gotten A Few Legendary Drops, Indicating Perhaps D4 Won’t Be As Stingy With Those As D3 Was At Launch (I Remember Going 70 Hours Before My First Legendary Drop In D3, An Unusable Quiver For My Barbarian).

When My Game Last Crashed I Was In The Middle Of Some Sort Of Rogue-specific Specialization Quest That Seems Somewhat Interesting In Terms Of How It Will Modify My Potential Build.

My Current Build Is Setting A Poison Trap Down, Double Slash Dashing Through Enemies Caught In It, Then Unleashing Arrows On The Survivors.

In Terms Of How Diablo 4 Has Evolved From Past Games, I Am Getting A Whole Lot Of Lost Ark Vibes Here, The Korean, Diablo-ish MMO That Amazon Recently Brought To The US, But One Laden With I Would Argue Just…too Much Stuff And Too Many Potentially Pay-to-win Elements.

But You Can See Some Of The DNA Here, Particularly With Achievements Tied To Exploration Of Areas In The Game That Reward Players For Doing Everything In A Given Zone.

Larger Dungeons, That Are Among The Most Interesting Areas In The Game So Far, And Where I’ve Found Nearly All My Legendaries.

The Most Impressive Thing I Did Was An Elaborate “Stronghold” I Randomly Found Out In The World That Culminated In The Toughest Boss Fight I’ve Seen In The Game Yet.

It Certainly Seemed Like A Level Beyond Anything Else I’d Seen So Far, Even If It Wasn’t A True “world Boss,” Which Spawn At Set Times And Need To Be Mobbed By Loads Of Players.

We Have Been Assured, Repeatedly, That All Microtransactions In This Game Are Cosmetic, And We Are Not Going To Have A Diablo Immortal Situation On Our Hands Where It Could Cost Tens Of Thousands Of Dollars To Max Power A Character In That Mobile Monstrosity.

It’s Fun, It Very Much Feels Connected To The Roots Of Diablo, And If It Would Just Work For An Extended Period Of Time Without Kicking Me Out, I Would Already Be Very Much Addicted To It.

I’ll Hit Max Level Once I Can, Finish The Early Campaign And Report Back With The Full Experience.