Diablo IV, the hack-and-slash action role-playing game, is Activision Blizzard Entertainments' game, and is the fourth main installment in the Diablo series.
Launched months after the controversies surrounding Diablo Immortal, Diablo IV was already the franchise’s largest preview game with nearly 62 million hours played in 2 weeks.
And this time, according to the developer, Diablo IV is also the fastest-selling game ever.
What follows player's character, known as "the Wanderer," Diablo IV takes place fifty years after the events of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, and after millions have been slaughtered.
Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto, wants her grip on the Sanctuary cuts deep into the hearts of men and women alike, cultivating the worst in its denizens and leaving the world a dark, hopeless place.
The fires of Hell burn bright #DiabloIV is the fastest selling Blizzard game of all-time. pic.twitter.com/L4pdjVnWFE
— Diablo (@Diablo) June 6, 2023
The game was announced at BlizzCon 2019 and released on June 5, 2023, with early access starting on June 1, and public betas released in March 2023.
Being the fastest-selling game of Blizzard, shows how the developer has learned its lessons.
Diablo III , which was released in 2012, was actually critical and commercial success. But it had a lot of points of failures, which include an unnecessary "always online" gameplay, security issues where players got hacked, bad handling of user accounts, broken servers, and a real-money auction house that nobody liked or wanted.
The next biggest release, Diablo Immortal, wasn't that all different, but it was launched in 2022, and was more focused on mobile devices, not desktop PCs, meaning that being online all the time wasn't a big issue.
Diablo IV followed that footstep.
First, it has a stellar dark storytelling, in which the story follows the dramatic resurrection of the Lord of Hatred and Queen of Succubi, Lilith.
Taking place 30 years after the event of Diablo III, players must venture into a gruesome and dire journey across the land of Sanctuary as humanity descends into madness.
For these reasons, Diablo IV has been making headlines.
Due to the high demands, Diablo IV has been experiencing login issues since its official launch, which were caused by infinite queues and network disconnects.
In the four days between Diablo IV’s June 1 early access date and its hard launch date, players have already put 93 million hours into the action role-playing game. This is an equivalent to "over 10,000 years," said Blizzard, comparing the game's single player as "playing 24 hours a day since the beginning of human civilization."
By becoming Blizzard's fastest-selling game, Diablo IV also becomes the "highest pre-launch unit sales ever on both console and PC," surpassing titles like Overwatch, Hearthstone, and StarCraft.
Impressive, even for a 25-year-old franchise.
It's worth noting though, that Blizzard never gives a specific number for total units sold.
Read: The 'Philosophy' Of Great Gameplay, And Welcoming 'The Challenge Of Changing'
