Activision Blizzard executive Rod Ferguson has confirmed that Diablo IV will not launch on Xbox or PC Game Pass and encourages players to try out the early access beta this upcoming weekend.
“It’s awesome seeing the excitement around the Diablo IV Beta, and our Wolf Pack puppy! We’ve been getting some questions about D4 on Game Pass and I want to let you know we have no plans for that,” Ferguson explained on Twitter. “See you in Sanctuary during the Beta Early Access weekend starting on March 17!”
While some may have expected the game to launch on Microsoft’s subscription, it also makes sense that it won’t. All of Xbox’s first-party games are put on the service on release day, but Microsoft’s merger with Activision Blizzard still hasn’t been officially approved in places like the EU. As such, Activision Blizzard isn’t part of Xbox’s first-party lineup quite yet.
Both Sony and Microsoft are still battling the merger out. Sony wants to stop the deal from going through, stating that the terms Microsoft offered for future Call of Duty releases on PlayStation would irreparably harm competition in the industry. Sony is also worried that Microsoft could sabotage Call of Duty on PlayStation by doing things like raising its price or only offering it on Game Pass.
On the other hand, Microsoft has been trying to assuage regulators about their fears of anticompetitiveness. Microsoft signed a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty games to Nintendo devices on the same day as Xbox and another 10-year deal to bring its PC games to Nvidia’s GeForce Now.
Diablo IV’s early access beta goes from March 17 through 19 and its open beta goes from March 24 through 26. The game launches on June 6 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
In IGN’s Diablo IV preview, we said, “Heaven help any game that ships anywhere near Diablo 4, because I know I’ll be too absorbed in my adventures in Sanctuary to care about anything else.”
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
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