Diablo 4 preloading for the early access beta has started

Diablo 4 cinematic trailer
(Image credit: Blizzard)

Preloading for Diablo 4's early access beta has begun and yeah this month is going to be a mouthful of Diablo beta dates and times. This weekend's beta, which begins on Friday, March 17, is for folks who've preordered any edition of Diablo 4.

As of today, March 15, you should have the ability to begin downloading the beta in your Battlenet app on PC. So if you've already got your ticket to hell it's time to hurry up and wait on that download.

In the sidebar of your launcher, make sure to change your game version to "Diablo IV - beta" so you have the option to install. It's a slightly chunky installation. The main download is about 80GB, though you can cut that in half to just 40GB if you choose not to install the high resolution texture pack.

For this weekend, you'll start off with either a Barbarian, Rogue, or Sorcerer in the first few hours of Diablo 4's campaign to explore the Fractured Peaks and fight its first world boss Ashava.

If you haven't pre-ordered, don't worry. Next weekend's beta is entirely open to all and preloading will begin next Wednesday, just like today, and you'll have all five Diablo 4 classes available to play. We've broken down both the Diablo 4 beta dates separately to let you know the exact when and how of the two different beta weekends this month.

Lauren Morton
Associate Editor

Lauren started writing for PC Gamer as a freelancer in 2017 while chasing the Dark Souls fashion police and accepted her role as Associate Editor in 2021, now serving as the self-appointed chief cozy games enjoyer. She originally started her career in game development and is still fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long books, longer RPGs, has strong feelings about farmlife sims, and can't stop playing co-op crafting games.