It is now official. Blizzard Entertainment announced Diablo Immortal Alpha is open in Australia to a select group of players who meet the minimum mobile requirements (not everyone). Several selected USA content creators are livestreaming gameplay as I speak.

Several gaming sites started sharing their hands-on gameplay impressions as well.

RedOctober shared with other /r/DiabloImmortal Discord members an image. It shows that Nextgen tweeted Diablo Immortal previews are coming this week.

At a glimpse, I looked NextGen doesn’t have a website; his twitter account only has 42 followers; and his YouTube account has 1.18K subscribers.

Does that make him untrustworthy? Probably. But this doesn’t necessarily makes him untrustworthy.

Checking through his past tweets, back in November 25, 2020, Nextgen also said Cyberpunk 2077 previews were coming in December 7.

On December 7, he retweeted someone who linked 4 big gaming site reviews/early impressions. If he got this one right, maybe somehow there is a upcoming Diablo Immortal preview or some info next week?

This new rumor comes back to back with a recent rumor (from another source) that responded to me he referred to his Blizzard employee friends being invited to Diablo Immortal Technical Alpha a few days ago.

Plus, Diablo community manager PezRadar clarifying the Android device compatibility changes in the Google Play Diablo Immortal app — both have given momentum that Beta testing might be nigh.

In this particular case, Nextgen tweeted “previews” in plural. As someone who gets Blizzard previews and advance materials I can see what he meant. Blizzard has sent me advance material in the past at least a week or two in advance with an embargo date.

If Nextgen is right, some major gaming sites might have gotten advance material about Diablo Immortal along with an embargo date for simultaneous publishing. Thursdays are usually among Blizzard’s favorite days to publish blogs. So here is hoping the rumor is not just a rumor.

If these previews are coming, this might be a hype push to encourage pre-registration for the upcoming Beta test.

Thanks, RedOctober and MrMesli for the tips.

Follow @blizzplanetcom for updates.

Nextgen’s YouTube About page says:

“I’ve been active in the gaming industry myself for more than 15 years and gained a lot of insight which I want to share with you. From time to time I will also provide you with exclusive leaked information from trusted sources – which I only will post if I’m 100 % convinced this info is correct.”

If he worked in the gaming industry as a developer or as staff for a games studio for 15 years — I can see how he might have friends all over the place in Activision, Blizzard, CDProjekt, and other studios who might be giving him private tips on what’s going on.

If on the other hand, he has been active in the gaming industry as a writer or editor — I can see how he might have inside information — not from the point of view of game studios, but from the point of view of of a gaming news site. Someone might be feeding him embargo dates for upcoming previews.

UPDATE – Thurs, Dec 17 | 5am EST: I reached out to Nextgen shortly after posting this rumor article. He responded at 3:35am the following:

Nextgen: “– expect impressions from the Early Alpha on big gaming sites later today.”

Seems we won’t have to wait too long to find out if his claim is true or false. Based on his Cyberpunk 2077 tweet, we can at the least believe that he has friends within some of these gaming sites who are under embargo date.

Hope you enjoyed this article. Please, support Blizzplanet on Patreon (monthly) or PayPal (once), and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch for daily Blizzard games news updates.
BlizzCon 2019 Panel Transcripts