Diablo 4 expansion renamed “Vessel of Waitred” after 5-hour launch delay

Diablo 4’s highly anticipated Season 6 and expansion, Vessel of Hatred, was hit with a frustrating five-hour delay on October 7, 2024.

The launch of Diablo 4’s sixth season along with the game’s first expansion was set for midnight UK time, but instead of unleashing the demons of hell, Blizzard unleashed the wrath of its players.

Originally, the expansion was supposed to go live at 4 p.m. PDT, with the official Diablo X (Twitter) account hyping it up every hour leading to the launch.

Then, just an hour before the big moment, Blizzard announced there would be a “short delay” for Vessel of Hatred’s launch. Community manager Adam Fletcher promised it would only be a couple of hours at most – but players knew better.

Blizzard

At the stroke of 4 p.m. PDT, Blizzard began locking out new logins, leaving players who were already logged in stuck in limbo on the previous patch.

Meanwhile, others, particularly in the EST time zone, were left raging as they waited. “They’re waiting for EU players to go to bed so NA can have a smooth start,” one player complained on the official Blizzard forum, as the more competitive gamers feared losing an advantage.

Frustrated fans flooded forums and social media, rebranding the expansion as “Vessel of Waitred.”

One clever Reddit commenter suggested that Blizzard intentionally enraged players as part of a twisted marketing stunt, calling it an attempt to make them “vessels of hatred,” in line with the expansion’s theme.

While it’s a funny assumption, Blizzard would’ve taken too big a hit for it to be a marketing stunt. On Steam, players review-bombed the game, dropping it to a “Mostly Negative” rating, which is slowly making its way back to “Mixed”.

Diablo 4 finally launched at 9 p.m. PDT, but the problems didn’t stop there. Players faced bugs, including issues with their licenses and the inability to see the new Spiritborn class.

Despite the rough start, our review of Vessel of Hatred scored it a 4/5, calling it “exactly what Diablo 4 needed.” Blizzard is now working hard to patch the bugs, but this rocky launch will be one players won’t forget soon.