Since its official release 6 months ago, the launch of the Seasonal Competitive Ladder mode of Diablo 2 Resurrected has been highly anticipated by players. Not only does it give Diablo 2: Resurrected players a reason to play the game again, but it offers the first new content and balance changes the game has received in a long time.
However, upgrading to an older game like Diablo 2 has proven quite challenging. Blizzard has chosen to delay the launch of the Diablo 2: Resurrected ladder until late April. Diablo 2: Resurrected ladder and 2.4 never had an official release date. The PTR update with all the new content was released in March, and many players thought the full version would be out in a few weeks.
The new release schedule for Patch 2.4 for Diablo 2: Resurrected is April 14, and the ladder feature will be released two weeks later on April 28. The delayed ladder launch is intended to provide extra time to ensure players are ready for the competitive environment.
Blizzard was very transparent about the reasons for the delay, describing three specific “blockers” that needed to be addressed in the PTR for Diablo 2: Resurrected. Two of the most compelling topics are database issues. First, the lack of indexes in the database caused “slow game joins and creations”.
Blizzard said the database bug has been fixed, but more time is needed to ensure the fix works for a longer period of time. Second, several region-specific database errors were encountered that needed to be resolved. The third big problem, and a major unacceptable one, is that the store is not properly converted to the new version of Diablo 2 Resurrected. Obviously, this kind of error cannot go live. Blizzard chose to postpone it to fix it.