World’s First Level 100 Hardcore Character Lost in Diablo IV: Souaïb “cArn” Hanaf

Yesterday, Souaïb “cArn” Hanaf became the first player in the world to reach level 100 with a character in Diablo IV’s Hardcore mode. This ensured that his name is carved into a large statue of Lilith at Blizzard along with the 999 others who follow his feat. I guess he’s pretty happy that this is written in stone now, because he’s having a much worse day today.

The headline says it all. Hanaf was enjoying playing Diablo IV as the level 100 barbarian on Hardcore today when he suddenly got disconnected. “No big deal. Just log in again.” Not completely. Blizzard wants to prevent players from logging out to avoid losing their character when they are close to dying, so disconnecting from Diablo IV in any way while playing Hardcore is treated as a death. That means Hanaf’s barbarian is now lost forever. A heartbreaking moment that is clearly reflected in his reaction there and then and after it happened.

Blizzard has not said anything about this yet, so we can still hope that it is possible to revive the world’s first level 100 Hardcore character. In any case, this is another example of why the always-online requirement is ridiculously bad.