Mere hours out from the Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred expansions launch, Blizzard announced a delay for an undetermined amount of time. Since the initial announcement, the expansion has gone live five and a half hours later than expected.
Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred expansion was set for a simultaneous global launch at 4 PM PDT on October 7. Players were gearing up to test out the new Spiritborn class alongside new mechanics like Mercenaries and the Kurast Undercity.
Unfortunately, a last-minute announcement from Blizzard confirmed that Vessel of Hatred would face “a small delay”. Diablo 4’s Global Director of Community Adam Fletcher took to X to explain the situation further.
“We are tackling a small issue on the backend which is going to cause us to miss that 4 PM PDT time,” Fletcher explained. “We still expect things up this evening.”
Hi friends – Got some quick updates regarding the launch of Vessel of Hatred.We are looking at a small delay to our launch times. We are tackling a small issue on the backend which is going to cause us to miss that 4pm PDT time. We still expect things up this evening.We have…
— Adam Fletcher (@PezRadar) October 7, 2024
While an exact time hadn’t been given at this point, Fletcher responded to players with a rough estimate. “I’m hoping just a couple hours at most, but we shall see,” he elaborated.
General Manager Rod Fergusson followed up four hours later, adding it’s going to take a little while longer.
“Due to an unfortunate technical issue, it could be upwards of two hours till we launch Vessel of Hatred,” he explained. He also warned those on PC, particularly players on Battle.Net, will need to download a “sizeable new patch” when it goes online.
Update – due to an unfortunate technical issue, it could be upwards of 2 hours till we launch Vessel of Hatred. https://t.co/2SrGzd94cg players will also need to update to a new sizable patch when ready. We apologize for the delay and look forward to seeing you in Nahantu soon.
— Rod Fergusson (@RodFergusson) October 8, 2024
Fergusson circled back two hours later to again provide a new update, ensuring the dev team was close to figuring out all the quirks.
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“New update is nearly finished uploading to our servers. We will give the green light once it’s finished and available for Bnet users.
“We are almost there!”
Update – New update is nearly finished uploading to our servers. We will give the greenlight once it's finished and available for Bnet users. During this time, we will run a QA check before we turn things on. We appreciate your patience during this period. We are almost there!
— Rod Fergusson (@RodFergusson) October 8, 2024
After some more time in the oven, the team at Blizzard announced the launch of Vessel of Hatred which has finally gone live. Coming online at 9:30 PM PDT, the delay for the DLC lasted a full five and a half hours.
QA verification complete!Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred is NOW LIVE across all platforms!
— Adam Fletcher (@PezRadar) October 8, 2024
This delay also impacted the launch of Diablo 4 Season 6 which arrived alongside the Vessel of Hatred expansion. The Season of Hatred Rising launched as the new update was rolled out and the expansion came online.
Reactions to Blizzard’s announcement of the Vessel of Hatred delay were mixed. Many are pointing to previous instances in which the launch for seasonal content has been waylaid and have complained about the inconvenience.
“The most frustrating thing is now we won’t know when it starts and will end up late,” one user on X voiced. “Then we’ll be struggling to get in and started. How many times have we seen this?”
Others have praised Blizzard and Fletcher for the candor with which they have responded to the delay. “You guys are great with transparency,” another X user put forward. “Thank you genuinely for the updates.”