On October 7, 2024, the much-awaited Season 6 of Diablo 4, titled Vessel of Hatred, experienced an exasperating five-hour delay at launch.
The debut of Diablo 4’s sixth season and its inaugural expansion was planned for midnight UK time, but instead of bringing forth the forces of hell, Blizzard stirred up discontent among its player base.
Initially, the expansion was slated to go live at 4 p.m. PDT, with the official Diablo X (Twitter) account generating excitement with hourly updates leading up to the release.
However, just an hour before the much-anticipated launch, Blizzard revealed that Vessel of Hatred would see a “short delay.” Community manager Adam Fletcher assured fans it would only be a brief wait, but many players remained skeptical.
At exactly 4 p.m. PDT, Blizzard started locking new logins, leaving those who were already in the game stranded with the previous patch.
Players, particularly in the EST timezone, expressed their frustrations as they waited. One user voiced their irritation on the official Blizzard forum, saying, “They’re waiting for EU players to go to bed so NA can have a smooth start,” as competitive gamers worried about losing their edge.
Disappointed fans took to forums and social media, playfully renaming the expansion to “Vessel of Waitred.”
A witty commenter on Reddit speculated that Blizzard may have purposely upset players as part of a bizarre marketing tactic, suggesting it was to transform them into “vessels of hatred,” fitting perfectly with the expansion’s theme.
While this theory is amusing, Blizzard likely would not risk significant backlash for a stunt like that. The game faced severe backlash on Steam, where review-bombing led to a “Mostly Negative”rating, which has gradually improved to “Mixed.”
Diablo 4’s release finally took place at 9 p.m. PDT, but players continued to encounter issues such as bugs affecting their licenses and the invisibility of the new Spiritborn class.
Despite this challenging launch, our assessment of Vessel of Hatred awarded it a solid 4/5, labeling it “precisely what Diablo 4 needed.” Blizzard is actively addressing the bugs, but this tumultuous launch will be remembered by gamers for quite some time.
Leave a Reply