Diablo 2: Resurrected beta kicks off this weekend
Early access first, then open to all.
The Diablo 2: Resurrected beta kicks off this weekend, Blizzard has announced.
Early access to the beta begins at 6pm UK time on Friday 13th August across PC, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. The beta is not available on Nintendo Switch.
To get the early access you have to pre-purchase the game or the Diablo Prime Evil Collection. For the early access beta, you need to have separately pre-ordered Diablo 2: Resurrected or Diablo Prime Evil Collection on each platform you want to play on, Blizzard added.
The open beta begins at 6pm UK time a week later, on 20th August.
The beta weekends for Diablo 2: Resurrected, the remaster of Blizzard's 20 year-old action role-playing game, include two additional classes: the Druid and the Paladin. These join the three available to play with the previous alpha test: the Sorceress, the Barbarian and the Amazon. Diablo 2: Resurrected launches with seven playable classes.
Both test weekends will have multiplayer enabled, Blizzard said, alongside cross-progression. Up to eight players can play together in one game (experience, monster hit points, and the quantity of items dropped scale upwards as more players join the session). There's PvP via the duel system, too.
As with the technical alpha, both Act I: The Sightless Eye and Act II: The Secret of the Vizjerei are fully playable in the open beta, including the fully remade cinematics for both acts. There is no level cap.
Progression from the early access test carries over to the open beta, but progress will not carry over to the live release on 23rd September.
Some more housekeeping: the early access weekend test runs until 6pm UK time on 17th August. The open beta weekend ends at 6pm UK time on 23rd August. "This will allow us to get the right amount of gameplay feedback and client performance data," Blizzard said.
Xbox Live Gold is required to play during the early access, and to access multiplayer features at launch on Xbox. Xbox Live Gold is not required to play during the open beta on Xbox, though. PlayStation Plus is not required during the early access or the open beta, but is required to access multiplayer features at launch on PlayStation.