Diablo 4's Xbox open beta kicks off later today and will be live over the course of the weekend, however Activision and Blizzard aren't expecting it to be plain sailing throughout. The teams are warning players of "unprecedented traffic and queue times" once the beta moves from pre-order exclusivity to being fully open to everyone.
In a new blog post, the team at Blizzard has thanked those who participated in the early access beta, while also sending out a warning to everyone planning on hopping into the Diablo 4 open beta this weekend:
"Thank you to those who participated in the Early Access Beta. Betas are incredibly useful for the development team. [...] With your help, we learned a lot during our Early Access Beta weekend. We intend to learn a lot more this weekend during our Open Beta, and we want to talk to you all about what you can expect and how your participation directly impacts Diablo IV development.
When we open the gates again this Friday to absolutely everyone, we are expecting a lot of people. 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.
We can’t thank you enough - by providing feedback, reporting, and patiently waiting in queues before enjoying Act 1 of Diablo IV, you are helping us to continually improve the game."
If you do plan on trying out Diablo 4 on Xbox this weekend, it's worth keeping in mind that you may come across these kinds of issues as Blizzard tests out the servers ahead of the game's June release. Our handy guide for accessing the Diablo 4 Xbox beta is available down below, along with some early impressions!