[Update #2]: Diablo 4's surprisingly brief yet free Open Beta will be running from March 24-26.
[Update]: Diablo 4 will be launching on June 6th, 2023 with five classes: Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Rogue and Sorceress.
After years of previews showcasing everything from monster design to the monetization plans, it looks like Diablo 4's development is now slowly nearing completion. While the release date is still shrouded in mystery, Blizzard has revealed that they're planning to launch Diablo 4 at some point in 2023.
More importantly, the Diablo 4 has also announced that there will be an endgame focused Closed Beta coming in the near future! Once again there is no release date, but considering the context I'm fully expecting it to arrive in mid-to-late October.
However, unlike some of the previous Blizzard betas, you won't be able to manually apply for this one. Instead, Blizzard will personally select players that have spent a considerable amount of time messing around with Diablo 2: Resurrected, Diablo 3, and Diablo Immortal's endgame content, thus ensuring they have a highly skilled and motivated group to test things. If you belong to this rather exclusive crowd, the only thing you have to do for a chance at entry is ensure the "News and Special Offers from Battle.net" option is ticked in your BattleNet's privacy settings.
This Closed Beta will be confidential, so unless you're one of the players that have managed to get an invite you'll have to wait a little while longer in order to find out just what Diablo 4's gameplay has to offer. The wait shouldn't be too excruciating, however, as Blizzard is already planning to launch a public test early next year.
The final thing worth mentioning is that the Closed Beta will be playable on PC, Xbox and PlayStation, and will also support cross-play between the consoles and cross-progression for all platforms. Probably not the most relevant feature for a beta, but I suppose all of that needs to get tested as well.
You can learn more about the Closed Beta, as well as keep an eye on any future developer updates, over at the Blizzard website. Enjoy!