Diablo 4 endgame beta asked testers not to leak it, so they leaked it immediately

Art of Diablo 4's Rogue class. — (Image credit: Blizzard)

What's the old saying? Three may keep an NDA if two of them are dead? Whatever it was, it's been proved right by the recent launch of the endgame beta for Diablo 4, whose playtesters rushed to Reddit to post about it almost as soon as they were invited, in clear contravention of the big bright letters spelling out "CONFIDENTIAL" right there in the email.

Blizzard sent out the beta invites exclusively to players who "recently spent significant amounts of time playing the end-game experiences of Diablo II: Resurrected, Diablo III, and Diablo Immortal," according to an update the company put out last month. The very same update also pointed out that the beta would be "confidential, meaning players invited will be unable to publicly talk about or share their gameplay experience". Oh well.

The Diablo 4 subreddit has already had to clamp down on posts from excited beta participants violating their NDAs, but the cat's out of the bag. The internet is already awash with takes, screenshots, and gameplay videos of Diablo 4's post-campaign. On the other hand, the takes mostly seem quite positive so far, which probably soothes Blizzard's wounded trust at least a little bit.

It's far from the first Diablo 4 leak. It was only last month that 40 minutes of gameplay footage leaked, showing a Barbarian character traipsing across a test build that was light on textures and heavy on combat. With so much footage and info about the game already floating around, Blizzard's insistence on telling testers to keep everything secret feels like slamming the barn door after the horse has bolted and uploaded its adventures to YouTube.

Well, even the pretence of secrecy won't last long. Diablo 4 will open up public testing early 2023, and the game itself will launch the same year. That's if it doesn't leak first.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.