Diablo IV Early Access - A Mostly Smooth Ride to Hell

On June 2, 2023, the gates of Diablo IV officially opened to those that have early access to the game. I was one of those players and was present the moment the servers turned on. For the Diablo PC player community, it was a fairly smooth launch all things considered as lag and queue times were not a major issue in the first hours servers went live. On the other hand, there was a major issue that plagued a good portion of the community, those playing on PlayStation and Xbox.

PC platform was smooth, consoles not so much

The moment servers went live I was also watching streamers waiting and almost immediately getting to start playing the full version of the game on PC. When I turned on my PS5, queue times look fairly reasonable as it asked me to wait for less than a minute. The process did take roughly that long but was booted out. There was a licensing error, the prompt reads “Unable to find a valid license for Diablo IV. (Code 315306)”. Uh oh, when this popped up,  I was thinking – is this an isolated incident? Am I just one of the lucky few? 

Apparently not as console players hit social media and Blizzard’s official forums to report that they are receiving a similar error code. The majority of the console player base was unable to play the game. This lasted for hours and the comments kept coming in as players expressed their frustration that they spent extra just to play early. 

This error code seems to be a unique error due to players having early access to the game. Blizzard has not officially explained why this happened but has expressed during that time that they are aware and is working on it. My guess is it has something to do with PlayStation and Xbox’s systems communicating with Battle.net.

While this is going on, PC players are just simply playing the game.

Instead of banging my head against the licensing error wall, I stepped away and focused on work. The error showed up at 7 AM my time and I attempted to log in again at 2 PM. Thankfully, it worked with no workaround needed! I guess I was the lucky few after all.

A weekend later, I’m now a level 45 Barbarian with no major issues other than the occasional lag, which makes me thankful that I didn’t attempt the crazy hardcore race to level 100. The lag is a normal occurrence but not severe to the point that it makes the game playable. Just sudden spikes that eventually go away on their own.

 In the first 12 hours or so since the servers went live, the console issue seems to have died down, but looking back at the same threads online about this issue, some are still experiencing the licensing error, so it’s not completely gone. 

Couch co-op was also hit with an issue

Another issue seen over the weekend is also exclusive to consoles and it revolves around couch co-op, especially when it involves one account owning the game and the other doesn’t. The issue simply doesn’t allow the second player to log in and join the host player. Seems to be an early access issue more than anything and we’ll see if this will still be a possible problem when the game officially launches. There’s a workaround, but still a hassle for those that just want to game with their loved ones during the weekend.

But these are the only major issues that occurred in Diablo IV’s first weekend officially live.  

Issues aside, Diablo IV is a premium Action RPG

In terms of the game itself, the game runs smoothly with no gameplay issues to ruin the overall experience. I did fall off the world once but got out easily with me being able to teleport back to town. That’s really it. The game feels polished from presentation, and gameplay, to how they are telling Diablo IV’s story. Slaying demons feel great and the progression of learning my class is engaging to the point that I find myself constantly changing my build based on the items I pick up. The experimental side of Diablo IV already makes it a better experience compared to what they did in Diablo III, bringing it closer to the series' Diablo 2 roots. 

Then, we have the game’s storytelling, which is by far the best Blizzard has done for the series. The voice acting, character models, and cutscenes, each aspect that shapes the narrative elevates the series to new heights as gameplay is no longer just the reason why you are moved to progress, which is a big win in my book. 

Fairly impressed so far and the addiction has settled in. Well, at least up to Act 4. I’m still working on finishing this game as I write this but eager to experience the endgame grind and how flexible the game will be in making different builds.

This is rather surprising as I was expecting much worse as I survived the launch of Diablo III, but we’ll see as the rest of the Diablo community will soon start playing the game when Diablo IV officially launches on June 6.

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