The Diablo 4 Server Slam beta is underway now.
This is the final public playtest before the action RPG's launch in June. It's open to everyone—you can download the Diablo 4 beta in the Battle.net launcher to join in—and will run until Sunday at 12 pm PT.
At the moment, the servers aren't actually slammed: I made a character and started playing right away, with no queue. Maybe a certain Zelda game has something to do with that, but if things go anything like they did during the last open beta period, we'll probably see queues appear as more and more people get off of work in North America. If there is a big rush this evening (not everyone is playing Tears of the Kingdom, right?), things will likely ease up into the weekend.
This test differs from the previous ones in a few ways: It includes the updates Blizzard decided on following the last betas—details here—and also adjusts the Legendary item drop rate to what it'll be in the actual game, so we'll get a truer sense of early game's pacing.
Progress won't carry over to the launch version, so don't get too attached to your character—or just remember what you did so you can recreate them. Character level maxes out at 20 in the beta, but you can keep exploring Diablo 4's first act after you hit that cap.
Along with a chance to demo Diablo 4—and for Blizzard to identify server issues before the release—there are some Diablo 4 beta rewards you might want to pick up if you plan to get the full game:
- "Initial Casualty" title: Reach Kyovashad with one character
- "Early Voyager" title: Reach level 20 with one character
- Beta Wolf Pack cosmetic item: Reach level 20 on one character
- Cry of Ashava Mount Trophy: earned by defeating the world boss, Ashava, with a level 20 character
One of those requires defeating Ashava, the "biggest challenge" of Server Slam: a world boss who'll first appear on Saturday, May 13 at 9 am PT, and will then reappear every three hours after that until 9 am PT on Sunday.
"She's a lumbering behemoth with two razor-sharp arm blades, scales stronger than plate mail, and hell-bent on ripping through all who interrupt her quest to bathe Sanctuary in poisonous bile," writes Blizzard. "Because your characters can't surpass Level 20 during Server Slam, felling her will be quite the monumental task."
Diablo 4 will release in full on June 6.
