Diablo 4's Vessel of Hatred expansion, originally scheduled to go live at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET, has been briefly delayed.

In a post on the Blizzard forums announcing the delay, Diablo community manager Adam Fletcher stated a "small technical issue" was to blame, one that needed to be resolved in order for players to start at the same time across all platforms. Blizzard is hoping to have the Diablo 4 servers back up and running this evening, Fletcher said.

"We apologize for the late breaking news on the time shift, but this is an important step we need to make to ensure every player can start their journey through Nahantu together," Fletcher said.

When asked to clarify how long the delay would be, Fletcher in a reply on X said the hope is that the delay is for "just a couple hours at most, but we shall see."

Blizzard will begin locking out new logins to Diablo 4 starting at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET, while players already logged in prior to that time will likely lose connection to the game as the developer prepares it for the expansion's launch.

Vessel of Hatred will introduce a number of new features to Diablo 4, including a new story campaign centered around Mephisto, Runewords inspired by Diablo 2, the return of recruitable Mercenaries, and a new class, the Spiritborn. Update 2.0, which accompanies Vessel of Hatred but will not require the expansion, will also dramatically overhaul Diablo 4's difficulty system to be more like Diablo 3.

In GameSpot's Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred review, reviewer Alessandro Barbosa called the first expansion for Blizzard's hit ARPG "a great reentry point for lapsed Diablo 4 players" that makes the entire experience feel fresh again.

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