Diablo IV closed beta testing: First footage is online

Closed beta testing of Diablo IV action-RPG from Blizzard Entertainment has already started. Players, who have spent a lot of time in Diablo II: Resurrected and Diablo III in the past, were invited to take part in the test. All of them have signed a nondisclosure agreement, but in spite of this, a lot of footage and videos from the game have already appeared on the web.

This is what the gameplay for the barbarian looks like:

The screenshots are quite nice as well:

What's available in the beta?

The following events and locations are available to beta participants:

• Regional event "Rising Hell" (it is only available on the "Nightmare" difficulty level, and for defeating enhanced monsters you can get ashes to open Hell Rising chests, in which good rewards are promised);
• The PvP zones of "Fields of Hatred," where you can collect seeds of hate that can be recycled into red dust to buy decorative rewards;
• The Whispering Tree quests, for which you can gain experience, gold, and dark gifts that can be exchanged for other valuable rewards;
• Dungeons on Nightmare difficulty level, which will open after finding the first Nightmare symbol.

The game will also feature what's known as improvement tables, a development system for max level characters, which Blizzard talked about back in December 2021. Players will also have access to the so-called crossplay - the synchronization of game progress on different platforms.

According to the portal GlassCannon, the beta version of the game supports:

• HDR,
• ray tracing,
• DLSS, FSR and XeSS scaling,
• DirectStorage loading acceleration technology.

The beta weighs 69.8 gigabytes.

What do we know about Diablo IV?

The new game in the Diablo series was announced on November 1, 2019 at the annual BlizzCon 2019 conference, where the developers promised to return to the dark style of the second part of the game. The game will also feature Lilith, the progenitor of humanity, daughter of Mephisto and queen of the succubi, whom we first saw in Diablo II. It's probably the one we first saw in Diablo II, and she'll be on the cover art.

The events in Diablo IV will take place 60 years after the events of the third part. Gamers will be presented an open world, divided into 5 unique locations:

• Kejhistan,
• Dry Steppes,
• Scosglen,
• Fractured Peaks,
• Hawezar.

It will be possible to move between locations, which, as we were promised, are now 10-20 times larger than in the previous part, and on riding animals.

Although the game will have elements of a common game world, it does not belong to the MMO genre, there will be no random generation of locations and content. However, there will be PvP-zones where players will be able to fight with each other - both solo and in teams.

So far we know about 5 classes, which will be available in the game:

• Robber
• Barbarian
• Wizard
• Druid
• Necromancer

When is Diablo IV expected to be released?

Blizzard plans to have open testing of Diablo IV early next year, and expect the game's release some time after testing is complete. This will most likely happen in mid-2023. The game will be released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S.