Blizzard Warns Of “Lengthy Queue Times” For Diablo 4 Open Beta

Diablo IV’s open beta is almost here, but if you’re itching to play it first thing, you might have to hurry up and wait. In a post on the Blizzard forums from community manager Adam Fletcher, the company says that players should expect “lengthy queue times” for the beta, especially on Friday, March 24, which is the day it launches.

“When we open the gates again this Friday to absolutely everyone, we are expecting a lot of people,” the post reads in part. “There will be lengthy queue times, particularly on Friday when we first launch and during peak regional windows. This past weekend helped us to forecast the capacity we expect this weekend, and we will be using that capacity to intentionally stress our systems in preparation for launch. In summary, while we know it can be frustrating, we need queues to properly stress test our services and we are designing to ensure we have them some of the time.”

Fletcher also notes that the game may be taken offline at times in order to push out fixes or “infrastructure adjustments.” The post concludes by calling for players to report any bugs they encounter, in addition to giving general feedback about the game as a whole.

This isn’t the first time that Blizzard has defended the existence of server queues. Blizzard boss Rod Fergusson spoke out in favor of the practice in an interview with Eurogamer earlier this week, stating that it can be in “the best interest” of the game, because it may be required to keep the game itself from breaking.