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Diablo IV is still a little while off, but select players will be able to experience the game via the Closed End Game Beta very soon.
Blizzard recently announced the Closed End Game Beta for Diablo IV, which will be available to select long-time Diablo fans. As the title suggests, the beta will be specifically focused on Diablo IV's end game. While it might sound a bit harsh to throw players so far into the deep end before the game even arrives, Blizzard says it wants to focus on the end game for a few reasons. For one thing, the studio doesn't want to spoil too many narrative elements from Diablo IV. For another, Blizzard is aware that many fans ultimately spend more time in the end game than the base campaign of a Diablo game, and it wants to ensure that Diablo IV's end game experience is up to snuff.
The Diablo IV Closed End Game Beta will focus on a few key areas of Diablo IV's end game. Players will be able to engage with Whispers of the Dead (effectively a system for doling out side quests), ultra-hard Nightmare Dungeons, online PvP zones called Fields of Hatred, and the end game character progression system, Paragon Boards. They'll also have the chance to check out Helltide, a difficulty-modifying large-scale event which grants special currency.
Diablo IV was first announced at Blizzard's 2019 event BlizzCon. Little was known about the game at the time, but in the intervening years, a handful of details have been revealed. It looks to be among the largest Diablo games ever, with over 100 dungeons.
The Diablo series has been in a bit of a rough spot recently. The most recent entry in the series, Diablo Immortal, raised eyebrows when it was announced as a mobile exclusive in 2018, and while Immortal did ultimately release on PC, it was still met with a fair amount of controversy for its ridiculously expensive and manipulative microtransactions. Diablo Immortal has one of the lowest user scores of any game on Metacritic at time of writing.
Players on all platforms (PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Microsoft Windows) will be eligible for selection for the Diablo IV Closed End Game Beta, provided they've spent a significant amount of time in the end game portions of other Diablo titles and they are opted into special offers from Blizzard via Battle.net. Diablo IV will be available to everyone on the same platforms in 2023.
Source: Blizzard via YouTube