Diablo 4 is having a free trial on Steam for the first time ever

Diablo 4 has offered free trials in the past on Battle.net but for the first time ever you can now take it for a no-cost test drive on Steam. Until 10 am PT/1 pm ET on November 28, the forces of evil are yours to smack around across the ruined realm of Sanctuary—with certain limitations.

I suspect the timing isn’t coincidental—today is also the first day of the big Steam Autumn Sale—and it opens the door to a huge audience of potential players that Blizzard’s own Battle.net, with all due respect, just doesn’t have. It’s also an opportunity to turn around the not-great first impressions of the game on Steam, where the user rating currently stands at mixed. That’s not catastrophic (Starfield, for instance, holds the same rating), but it’s also not great for a game that was supposed to be a strong return to form for one of Blizzard’s most famous game series.

Trial players will have access to all Diablo 4 contents mentioned, but as mentioned, there is one limit: Characters are capped at level 20. That’s not terribly high and won’t take most people long to hit, especially since Blizzard is also running a “Mother’s Blessing Week” that confers a 35% XP and gold bonus until November 27. Blizzard confirmed that the bonus applies to the trial version of the game as well as the full release, which means it might not take more than a few hours, depending on what you’re doing, to run headlong into the cap.