Blizzard is also faced with leaks on its next video game, Diablo 4. Incomplete cutscenes are affected, as well as game scenes.
It’s time for leaks in the world of video games. After Overwatch and GTA 6 these days it’s now the turn of Diablo 4 also suffer from unauthorized distribution. Two videos appeared on the net during the weekend of September 17 and 18, 2022. They show incomplete cutscenes and a rather long sequence of gameplay on a working version.
Obviously, the circumstances in which the leak on Diablo 4 occurred are significantly less serious than for GTA 6. The leak that affected the future Rockstar Games hit was obviously made possible after an intrusion into the studio’s internal systems. This access allowed the hacker to GTA 6who tried to negotiate with Rockstar, to release videos on the future game (uninteresting, ultimately).
A leak from a private streaming session?
Videos taken from Diablo 4 appear taken from a private session of the game on a server reserved for a small number of people. Blizzard, the studio in charge of development, is customary to do so, with access reserved for “friends and family” to test the game’s alpha. Then, later, wider invitations are sent out during the closed beta then the public beta.
The two videos show 5 minutes and 38 minutes of play respectively. They are both marked with a watermark where the same code appears, indicating that there is only one play session involved. This water mark gives Blizzard the possibility of going back to the indelicate account and, possibly, closing access to it and taking sanctions against it.
As a general rule, people invited to internal and closed tests must comply with strict rules concerning the visuals of the game. They are alerted in advance and must accept and sign specific agreements. It’s very common to prepare for the release of a video game, like Diablo 4which is expected to launch in 2023.
This leak may be the result of an indirect error: a person may have wanted to broadcast his game to a restricted circle of relatives, to impress them, and it may be one of them who everything online. Internet users suggest that it was via a streaming session on Discord that the stream was recovered and recorded, before being posted online later on the net.
Blizzard announced Diablo 4 in 2019. Since then, the studio regularly shares videos, images and articles on its game, especially on gameplay. Therefore, the scenes that we see in the two videos do not contain spectacular revelations. Since there was no intrusion either, no sensitive file ended up in the wild.
Incomplete Diablo 4 cutscenes in the wild
More annoying, however, is the leak that took place a few days before and which this time shows new – but incomplete – elements. This time it’s scenes that come from future cutscenes for Diablo 4. Several videos are running on forums. They were shared on the RuTube host, but have since been removed.
Unlike the two gameplay videos, the cutscene videos are much more sensitive: they show plot elements that Blizzard wants to keep secret until the game is released. insofar as these are work files, which do not reach the level of quality that one can expect from a cinematic.
As we said at the time of the leak of GTA 6, it doesn’t do much to watch incomplete videos. All in all, you will only see a game in development, the final rendering of which will probably be quite different from what you have just seen. It’s the same for the cinematics of Diablo 4 : these are sometimes old videos and still in development.