Restored beta launches this weekend • Eurogamer.net

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Early access first, then open to everyone.

Blizzard announced the release of the restored beta of Diablo 2 this weekend.

Early access to the beta begins at 6pm UK time on Friday 13th August across PC, Xbox Series X, S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. The demo is not available on Nintendo Switch.

For early access, you must pre-purchase the game or the Diablo Prime Evil Collection. In order to get early access to the beta, you need to order Diablo 2: Resurrected or Diablo Prime Evil Collection separately on each platform you want to play on, Blizzard added.

Open beta starts at 6pm UK time a week later, on August 20th.

Diablo 2: Resurrected demo weekends, the 20-year-old version of Blizzard’s role-playing game, include two additional classes: Druid and Paladin. These join the three playable pre-alpha testers: Witch, Barbarian, and Amazon. Diablo 2: a renewed release with seven playable chapters.

Blizzard said both demo weekends will have multiplayer enabled, along with crossover progression. Up to eight players can play together in one game (EXP, monster hit points, amount of items reduced in size up as more players join the session). There is PvP via the dueling system as well.

As with the tech alpha, both Act I: The Sightless Eye and Act II: The Secret of the Vizjerei can be played entirely in open beta, including fully recreated cinematics for both works. There is no maximum level.

Progress is moving from early access testing to open beta, but progress will not carry over to live release on September 23.

Some housekeeping: Early access weekend testing runs until 6pm UK time on August 17th. The open beta weekend ends at 6pm UK time on August 23. “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 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. PlayStation Plus is not required during early access or open beta, but is required to access multiplayer features at launch on PlayStation.

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