Diablo 3: Blizzard Locks Down Russian Language Version

Without any warning, Blizzard has locked down the Russian language version of Diablo 3 – which few days ago was just fine in any other country than Russia and obviously it was cheaper from other regional versions of the game. You could even launch the Russian version of the game and select another language such as English and play just fine.

However, from today, anyone with this version is being asked to download the Russian language pack and they will be locked into that language.

Back on the 16th of May, Blizzard were asked whether it would be fine to use the Russian version and play in English and a CM responded with:

Yes this should be possible, you should be able to choose your language normally once the Russian version is released.

Today this has changed and the Russian version has been renamed “Limited Russian” and the original CM post has been changed to read:

Update: 08/06

The Limited Russian version is separate to the other versions, if you have a Limited Russian key on your account, you will need to play using the RU language pack

Sorry for any confusion over this issue.

Please note: the full EU version is available on the Blizzard Store which allows all languages and full region support via the Global Play feature (including Russian language support)

As you can imagine, there are now a lot of English speaking players locked into the Russian language with no way of changing unless they purchase a new EU version, or Russian players who actually want to to play the game in English but from today can’t.

There are plenty of customers calling for refunds or for Blizzard to let anyone who purchased the cheaper Russian version up until today have access to all languages. This all looks like a communication breakdown at Blizzard and perhaps we’ll see some compromise be reached in the coming days.

More info here, here and here. Source thanks to k4money!