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Diablo 4

Invalid License Error

I’ll be honest, my jaw was hanging open a bit when I logged into Diablo 4 a minute after 7 PM ET, got a 4 minute queue which was…actually over in four minutes. I got in, created my Barbarian and I’m already level 4, pausing only to write this article. No wild wait times, no errors, no disconnects (yet).

But I’m on PC. PS5 players? They’re no so lucky.

At the time of this writing, there is a widespread error that says “Unable to find a valid license for Diablo IV (Code 315306).” This is happening, obviously, to people who very much have indeed purchased the game, so something is going wrong here with an interaction between Blizzard and PlayStation it seems.

However, it may be Blizzard and console more broadly. I have heard of at least some Xbox players getting this error message as well, but overall players seem to be having more success with Microsoft. The PS5 error appears to be more widespread, for whatever reason.

Blizzard has indeed acknowledged the issue, via its community manager and a forum post here. They do say PlayStation specifically, even if a few Xbox folks are hitting it. The message just says:

“We are seeing reports regarding PlayStation users experiencing Invalid License errors. The team is looking into this right now and will update once we have more information.”

If you’ve come here for advice on a fix, I’m sorry I can’t help you yet, as there does not appear to be one. I would avoid drastic steps like reinstalling the 80 GB game or anything, as that is probably going to be unnecessary and not fix the problem anyway. But yes, there is a widespread problem, you are not alone.

Naturally, many Diablo players were concerned we could have another Error 37 issue on our hands, the old error code that endlessly crippled Diablo 3 at launch. It…doesn’t seem likely that we’re headed into something that bad. Given that this is a console-specific issues, it means that Blizzard’s servers are not totally melting down as a whole. This time around they also did a “server slam” and this is early access launch which are mitigating factors. But that’s cold comfort to PS players who can’t play yet because of the “no valid license” error.

As soon as there’s a new update on the situation I will post it here. Stay tuned, and hopefully this will be resolved soon.

Update: It seems this may be a PS-wide issue, as there are reports of many games returning the license error right now, not just Diablo 4. Bad coincidence or…sparked by a flood of Diablo logons? Not clear yet.

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Get the best of Forbes to your inbox with the latest insights from experts across the globe.Paul TassiI’ve been writing about video games, television and movies for Forbes for over 10 years, and you may have seen my reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. I cover all manner of console and PC games, but if it’s about looting or shooting, I’m definitely there. If I’m watching something, it’s usually science fiction, horror or superheroic. I’m also a regular on IGN’s Fireteam Chat podcast and have published five sci-fi novels.

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