With the release of Diablo 4 approaching, some players have spotted a detail on the PlayStation Store that suggests Blizzard may be bringing a controversial feature to the action RPG: the need to be “always online.”
Actually, in Diablo everyone just wants to loot and level. Everyone is driven by the goal of constantly improving their character. Reaction time and speed are key as battles become more difficult.
What players don’t need is lag or disconnections. It’s also frustrating when you have to start a dungeon from scratch because your internet connection went down during the final boss fight. Now players have spotted a detail on PlayStation Store that heralds the return of a controversial feature.
Diablo 4: Everything about the release, classes, beta and gameplay
Diablo 4 gets controversial feature
Which feature is it? The Diablo 4 page on the PlayStation Store reads “Online Play Required”. This means players need an internet connection at all times to play Diablo 4 – they are always-on. Such online compulsion was already an issue with Diablo Immortal.
In general, the online compulsion in the Diablo community is a controversial feature, many players just want to loot and level in peace, offline and as a single player. On the page that shared the PS Store page detail, a disappointed player wrote: “It’s really stupid. Always-on Diablo is such a stupid thing (via resetera.com).”
Online coercion was also an issue in November 2019 after Diablo 4 was announced with a “sared open world”. In the official Blizzard forum, the user Kelderon wrote at the time:
“I already have to D3 [Diablo 3] made the mistake of giving in to the ‘always-on’ compulsion. This was a lesson for me, as D3 tends to negate progress when you have a disconnect […]. I won’t do that to myself again and therefore save myself D4, since I’m not a group player in Diablo anyway (via eu.forums.blizzard.com).”
Diablo 4: The release date trailer
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What speaks for the online compulsion? As some players mention on the Blizzard forums, there are reasons to be forced online. For example, the permanent internet connection can be used to better ensure that a player does not cheat.
Alternatively, a player can cheat, bot, use exploits or even mods in single player and thus create an extremely strong character, in order to then ensure unfair conditions in multiplayer (via eu.forums.blizzard.com).
One solution players are citing on the forums to avoid being permanently forced online, while also ensuring that characters that were heavily cheated offline are not used online, would be special “offline characters”. Such an offline character could then only be used in offline sessions and not imported into multiplayer.
The first tests for Diablo were published in December 2022. This came without special offline characters, but with some gameplay details.
First tests explain the gameplay of Diablo 4: Here are 5 cool details – And 2 that annoy