Where's our Diablo 4 review?

You might've spotted some Diablo 4 reviews going live right about now, but unfortunately there won't be one from Eurogamer - yet. We've been playing the game a fair bit, but right now we're just not ready to publish a full review that meets our standards for thoroughness.

There are a few reasons for this - generally, when we hold off on publishing a review it's because either some key features aren't available for us to check out; because it's a game with a significant online component that hasn't properly been stress-tested yet; or because there's been some funny business or other awkwardness with getting access to review code in time to hit the deadline.

In Diablo 4's case it's actually a mix of all three. The in-game shop wasn't live during the period of early access we've had to the game, and while some official assets have been provided, and some promises publicly made by Blizzard about monetisation in Diablo 4, including a cosmetics-only focus and the inclusion of a more palatable 'battle pass' system, this feels like something we had to see in action as part of our review. Diablo 3 players will remember the hoo-haa about the auction house when it launched, while Blizzard's mobile take on the series, Diablo Immortal, has at times been under major scrutiny for its monetisation, so it's one we'd like to check on live servers first.

Speaking of, Diablo's also had some trouble with server stability on launch in the past, and while our time with the test weekends and the full game so far have been completely painless - and live service games seem to have, touch wood, got past that awkward era of consistently launching to a few weeks of server woes - it's another thing we'd like to see in practise.

Finally, there has been some weirdness with review code - as you might have already seen in discussions on social media, reviewers had their progress wiped on May 25th, and the entirety of our access to the game removed at the same time.

That's a fairly unprecedented move for review code, and while we can partially understand the reasoning here - namely: some tech reasons, and giving players an equal starting position, especially with the "race" to hardcore level 100 recently announced - our progress was wiped before we could see enough of the game to give it a fair shake, and we aren't going to budge on what we feel is necessary for a review just because a studio made it harder to achieve.

Still, it's a tricky one to work around. I'm not planning on replaying the entire story all over again to reach the postgame and dig into that in real depth, or to hit postgame levels of build complexity with a different character, or to wait until as late as July to try out the first of Diablo 4's new seasons and battle passes - for the obvious reason that this would take an extraordinary amount of time, and stop our review from being particularly useful or timely.

Instead, we'll play it by ear, but we need to at least see the full game - shop included - on live public servers, and have a little more tinkering with some of the other classes and builds. In brief: you can expect a review from us, hopefully, soon after Diablo 4's full launch.