Blizzard Entertainment proudly announced today that the Diablo IV beta was the franchise's largest, having registered nearly 62 million hours played (the equivalent of around 7K years) over the course of the two weekends.
Nearly 30 billion monsters were slain, but they also got their vengeance on players by provoking almost 47 million player deaths. Around 2.6 million players earned their Beta Wolf Packs, the cosmetic reward awarded to players who leveled up to 20 with at least one character during the Diablo IV beta, and they'll get to show it off at the game's full release.
The Butcher, a classic Diablo boss that will randomly hunt players down in dungeons when they least expect it, crushed 1.7 million players during the beta weekends, though nearly 600K times players got their revenge on him.
The split was even worse for players when it comes to Ashava the Den Mother, the toughest boss in the Diablo IV beta. Ashava caused over 10 million player deaths, dying only just over 100K times herself.
Blizzard also shared that the most played class was the Sorcerer by far, followed by the Necromancer. Last but certainly not least, the Diablo IV beta rose to the top of Twitch's rankings during the weekends, which bodes well for the commercial success.
The Diablo IV beta had a few connection issues (mostly on Fridays), but other than that was generally well received by the community. I loved what I played, as you can read in this hands-on article.
Of course, there was still a lot of Diablo IV beta feedback regarding balance changes, bug fixes, and whatnot that Blizzard is still pouring through. They'll likely provide an update on what will be changed or modified in the coming weeks ahead of the June 6th release date, when the game will be launched on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X with full cross-play and cross-progression.
Today, Microsoft also announced, following previous rumors, a Diablo IV Xbox Series X bundle. Pre-orders are open at participating stores today for a recommended price of $559.
The bundle includes the standard edition of Diablo IV, an Xbox Series X with a controller, and the following in-game items:
- Bearer Mount with Caparison of Faith Mount Armor for Diablo IV
- Inarius Wings & Inarius Murloc Pet for Diablo III
- Amalgam of Rage Mount for World of Warcraft
- Umber Winged Darkness Cosmetics Set for Diablo Immortal
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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