“No…” Hanaf said during a recent livestream, his voice filled with dread as the game became frozen on Diablo 4 gold his screen. “Hello…are you kidding me?” As previously spotted by PCGamesN, the always-online game had disconnected from Blizzard’s servers, killing the level 100 Barbarian in the process. That’s because Diablo IV’s hardcore mode treats disconnects like death in order to discourage players from trying to pull the plug in a losing battle to avoid losing a character.
It was a brutal and unworthy death for the character who Hanaf had poured 86 hours into over the course of Diablo IV’s first week. Most hardcore mode characters die eventually, but usually in boss fights, nightmare dungeons, or other challenging late-game activities. Instead of going out in a blaze of glory, Hanaf’s Barbarian essentially died by slipping on the live service multiplayer equivalent of a banana peel.
Blizzard’s hardcore mode race saw some of the biggest Diablo fans compete to grind the new game as quickly and as safely as possible. While some players did so entirely on their own, others banded together in co-op mode where XP could be farmed more efficiently thanks to things like bonuses for playing as part of a group.
Hanaf in particular leaned on a small exploit for rapidly completing dungeons. Normally, it takes a few minutes for them to “cool down” before players can reset them and begin again. During Diablo IV’s Early Access period, however, players realized the party leader could abandon the group and restart a dungeon immediately while the rest rejoined, saving precious time. It was an arguably controversial advantage in a series most fans associate with single-player dungeon crawling.
Even though the Barbarian who cemented Hanaf’s victory is now dead, his name will be immortalized along with 999 others as they’re carved into a real life statue of Diablo IV’s main antagonist, Lilith. It’s a good thing too since the statues will probably last a long time, while the always-online game itself will eventually shut down, disconnected just like the first hardcore mode character who reached level 100 in it.
Whether you’re just jumping into Diablo IV now that it’s officially out or have been combing through Sanctuary since the loot-hunting RPG’s June 1 early access release, you’ll undoubtedly die at some point while fending off the evils of Hell. It’s inevitable; death is the great equalizer, after all. But if you record and post your demise, acclaimed actress Megan Fox might take notice of your death.
29 Diablo IV Tips That Will Make You A Better Player
Fox has been in a number of films and games since starting her acting career in 2001. However, she’s probably best known for her roles in 2007’s explosion fest Transformers and 2009’s horror comedy Jennifer’s Body. Now, the award-winning actress has taken to Instagram to post about Diablo IV, Blizzard’s wildly successful action-RPG that’s finally out on most platforms.
“If there’s one thing I love, it’s the sight of blood,” Fox said, standing in a black dress in front of burning candles. “And in Diablo IV, there are rivers of it. Show me your worst in-game death with #DiabloDeaths and you might get a eulogy from yours truly, telling the world that you went out like a hero. Or a chump.”
You can post your deaths on TikTok or Twitter with the corresponding hashtag and, on June 8, Fox will begin reading eulogies for a bevy of Diablo IV players.
Diablo IV—which has been experiencing login issues since its official launch on June 5—immediately set a record for the fastest-selling Blizzard game of all time, a press release from the developer says. It marks the World of Warcraft creator’s “highest pre-launch unit sales ever on both console and PC” based on units sold through June 5. That beats out Overwatch, Hearthstone, and StarCraft, though Blizzard never gives a specific number for total units sold.
Blizzard did not immediately respond to Kotaku’s request for comment. But it did mention in its release that, through 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. That’s equivalent to “over 10,000 years,” Blizzard says, what a single player would achieve after “playing 24 hours a day since the beginning of human civilization.” Too bad they didn’t have cheap Diablo IV gold blue light glasses then.
