Diablo 4 beta queue times will be lengthy, Blizzard warns

Everyone who can remember the Diablo 3 launch back in the spring of 2012 — or played last weekend’s early access beta for Diablo 4 — won’t be shocked to hear this, but Blizzard Entertainment is telling fans to expect lengthy queue times getting into Diablo 4’s open beta.

“When we open the gates again this Friday to absolutely everyone, we are expecting a lot of people,” community manager Adam Fletcher wrote in an update on Thursday. “There will be lengthy queue times, particularly on Friday when we first launch and during peak regional windows.”

Fletcher added that the closed beta from the preceding weekend (available only to those who pre-ordered the game, or who bought a sandwich from KFC) gave developers an idea of the capacity they’d be facing for the coming weekend’s open beta. Some beta testers had to wait in long lines for access and some were even kicked out.

Blizzard will be intentionally stressing its servers and systems so that the real launch in June doesn’t go as badly as Diablo 3’s did in May 2012. Added Fletcher, “while we know it can be frustrating, we need queues to properly stress test our services and we are designing to ensure we have them some of the time.”

Players can also expect there may be periods where Blizzard takes the servers offline temporarily “to deploy infrastructure adjustments or fixes,” Fletcher wrote.

The Diablo 4 Open beta clients are currently available for download from the PlayStation and Xbox Stores and Blizzard via Battle.net.net PC users. From March 24th at 12 p.m. EST to March 27th at 3 p.m. EST, the beta is only available to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 players. On June 6, the same platform will host the launch of this game.