Diablo 4 Won't Have Couch Co-Op On PC

Bad news for PC players looking to play Diablo 4 with a friend. While online multiplayer is of course going to come standard, couch co-op will be restricted to the console versions of the upcoming sequel.

In an interview with EuroGamer, Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson confirmed couch co-op is a console-only feature simply because the Technology hasn't been created for PC. "It's a Technology question," Fergusson explained. "Trying to do shared-screen co-op on PC is much more challenging when it comes to account management and how you play together."

Related: Betas Only Became Twisted Because Corporations Kept Selling Them To Us

Consoles have long been set up to allow multiple accounts to be signed in at once, but PC platforms haven't had much need to create a similar feature--Battle.net among them. That's likely because the opportunities for two people to play a Game on the same computer have been relatively rare until recently. Today's PCs can connect to TVs and have enough ports to handle multiple Game controllers, but that style of couch co-op Gameplay has traditionally been the realm of consoles.

"When you prioritize the problems you have to solve, solving for two people sitting at a desk, playing on the same PC, is lower priority when the majority of couch co-op that's going to happen is going to be in front of a sixty-five-inch TV," Fergusson added.

Elsewhere in the interview, Fergusson revealed over a million people took part in last weekend's early access beta, a number that "exceeded the number of players we thought we were going to get." He also reiterated comments made to NME earlier in the week about Blizzard's use of the term "beta" and how it has become "twisted" to become "‘marketing beta,’ which means demo."

Last weekend’s beta was definitely not a beta as some players sat in login queues of up to two hours only to be disconnected by server issues. Next weekend’s open beta will hopefully go smoother, but players should keep in mind that Blizzard still considers this a beta and not a demo. Be prepared for bugs.

Next: Resident Evil 4's Hardcore Mode Isn't Messing Around