What preparations are you making for the Diablo 4 launch?

It’s like Christmas is coming. A very bloody and gory Christmas to be sure, but the anticipation and people counting down the days feels very familiar. Diablo 4 is nearly here and the internet is abuzz with people trading levelling tips and making out what they think the optimal path to max level will be. Other people are building class talent builds and making recommendation, despite not having played the endgame yet.

Which is a long way of saying — we don’t really know what endgame is going to look like yet, at least in terms of balance and how the actual gameplay loop feels. The public betas have been capped at 25 and 20 respectively, with extremely limited timeframes and in-game geographic boundaries. Personally, I’m really looking forward to exploring the wider continent to see some of the other scenery, the environment team pulled out all the stops in the sections I’ve seen, and I’m sure the other areas are also amazing.

Different people have different rituals and methods of preparing for a new game launch, especially one as anticipated as this one. Some people plan to marathon through the early game to be among the first to hit the level cap. Others want to smell the roses and just wander around and explore. Some people will focus on getting one character as well equipped as humanly possible. Others will want to try all the things, and will have alts at various levels of progression on different classes as they experiment and find the one that really speaks to them.

Personally, I’ve been bookmarking a bunch of useful tools, like the Diablo 4 Interactive Map, and the D4Planner.io skill and item planner, and watching far too many video guides on how various systems work that I hadn’t been able to see or understand in the brief time I had in beta. Some people will create a bunch of characters to hold names for themselves until they are ready to really get stuck into them. Even if the names are not unique at a server or region level, it helps people bond with their roster of characters. 

Some people prepare for a game launch by applying for leave, prepping food — whether it be healthy snacks carefully macro balanced for maximum endurance, or buying slabs of energy drinks and sugar to boost themselves that way. Some people plan rest and exercise breaks, others will be glued to their chair like a South Park character. While others plan to fit the game in around their already otherwise busy schedule, they’ll get to it when the get to it.

The last Diablo game recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. We certainly expect Diablo 4 to be around for a while. So, what are your plans for launch? Are you going to go hard and have it scheduled down to the nth degree? Or are you going to wing it and see where the whimsy takes you? Is the Diablo 4 launch “Serious Business” or just another game to you?