Diablo 4’s next big moment is almost upon us. The game is currently in the final days of its fifth season, and while everyone is definitely looking forward to Season 6, the big thing on everyone’s radar is the release of the Vessel of Hatred expansion.
Vessel of Hatred is the game’s first major piece of new content since its release last year, and Blizzard is inviting players to see what Diablo 4 is all about ahead of the expansion’s release.
The latest Diablo 4 free trial weekend is live now, available across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC through Battle.net (though not Steam). The trial lets you download the full version of the game, but you can only get your characters up to level 20. Any progress you make on the characters you create, of course, will still be there whenever you do buy the full version.
Speaking of which, Blizzard has made that decision a little bit easier, as the game is 40% off until the end of the trial, which wraps up on Monday, September 23.
While the timing of this trial does make sense, it may be a little bit awkward for new players. Very soon, the game’s levelling experience and World Tier systems will be entirely changed, so it’s going to feel like a whiplash for anyone who picks up Diablo 4 for the first time this weekend, whether or not they continue playing until the expansion’s release or stop and pick up where they left off then.
Still, 20 levels is not much in terms of progress, so that shouldn’t be a major hurdle. Though the cap is low, the window should be more than enough to get a feel for the game’s mechanics, particularly as you can play it on different consoles and create various characters to try out the different classes.
Vessel of Hatred arrives alongside Season 6, on October 8, across all platforms. The expansion requires a copy of the base game of Diablo 4 to play, though the Season 6 patch will bring major changes and additions that everyone is going to benefit from. If you do spend the money to purchase it, you’re going to get to play as the new Spiritborn class, a new zone to explore, the new Runewords feature, not to mention continue the game’s narrative.
