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Diablo: Alpha 4 - version 4.21c
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NOTE: This project has been succeeded by the amazing Diablo PR Demo Enhanced. I'll keep the Alpha 4 online and even upload the last unreleased build (from 4.19 to 4.21c) that we've made, but for an authentic untarnished pre-release experience, I suggest you check out the Enhanced Demo, which is what we had in mind with the Alpha 4 anyways all those years ago.



Date: Based on a build from August 1996

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.-Shakespeare


The Alpha4 is neither a leaked in development version by Blizzard, nor is it an ordinary mod to retail Diablo. It is the attempt to faithfully recreate the status of development in July/August 1996. Basically this is just the pre-release demo with additional assets to enable the player to see later levels of the pre-release demo.
How do we do that? With the help of the pre-release Demo released by Blizzard a few months before the battle.net beta. While the pre-release demo only contained parts of the cathedral and was blocked after that, the rest of the code for later levels and monsters was still in the EXE file.
Since the assets stored in the pre-release MPQ are only for the first couple of levels, the game crashes a lot when trying to go deeper than level1 and is completely unplayable after level4. So what we're doing is trying to figure out how to convert the assets from later versions of the game to the pre-release demo. We're trying to leave the code unchanged, but some adjustments have to be made for incorporating actual gameplay, especially on the later levels and to include interesting removed game content.
For a full list of changes, take a look at the readme file in the downloadable archive.
A lot of people helped working on the Alpha4. Starting with the guy who, in 1996, found out how to hex-edit one byte in the demo to unlock everything. For a full list of credits, take a look at the Info section on this website.

4.21c note: This includes the launcher that we've built. It's not complete, but gets the job kind of done. You can change various settings with it, access debug information and even change the UI to older versions of Diablo.


If you have experience working within the diablo.exe or can work with the different image formats and think you can help us complete the Alpha4, feel free to contact us. Right now we're trying to increase stability without changing features and also fix several issues with the tileset.
I hope you enjoy playing the Alpha4, but due to the age of the software (almost 20 years) there are most certainly compatibility issues with modern operating systems so we will take no responsibility for any damage this might cause to your system and provide the download as-is to use at your own risk! There are also lots of bugs and stability issues both caused by the game being based on an unfinished version at Blizzard and also by our own attempts to unlock later levels, so be prepared to reload and start over often!

Some DLLs are included to make the Alpha4 compatible with Windows 10.

List of Changes

  • 16 levels + the mysterious level 17 (warning: crash guarantee) instead of just 1 level
  • 21 new monster types, more than in retail Diablo, including the removed enemy types have been added
  • Smaller corrections (seed sizes, dlvls, resistances, mlvls, frame count, attack types)
  • There is a completely new monster, too, the Ice Stalker which used to appear in earlier Alphas but was removed later
  • 6 new unique monsters (Wrathfire the Doomed and The Dark Lord for example)
  • Revised unique monster palettes
  • Smaller corrections (dlvls, attack types, damage)
  • Some bosses had to be moved to an other dlvl to make them spawn
  • All three character types are working
  • Classes all have their own sprites. This took up most of the work actually and they're still crash prone, especially the sorceror
  • 28 new unique items have been added
  • The base items stayed more or less the same, but their graphics are now from the Beta version
  • Finally, a lot of data was moved around, but you won't notice that ingame, if everything was done right

Alpha4 - Screenshots

These screenshots have been taken from various versions throughout the development of Alpha4, so they might not all represent the latest state of development. With the release of the next Alpha4 build, we will update the screenshots, because of some major changes.

Archer in Catacombs

  • You can see the different item graphics and a book of Infravision in the inventory



Archer in Caves

  • Fighting a unique enemy in the caves. Fangspeir was actually removed in the beta and put back in for retail
  • You can also see the floor tiles aren't 100% compatible with the pre-release demo image format



Archer in Caves

  • A really funny look at the balancing changes the game went through. +43 Zodiac Mace. In retail this would easily be dismissed as a hacked item, but back then it was a regular item drop



Archer in Town

  • Again, Beta item icons that got changed/removed in retail are visible
  • Also the Rift Bow dropped for our player here. In retail it is basically impossible to find due to messed up drop algorithms



Archer in Caves

  • Fighting a Unique Enemy
  • The Lava is unfortunately really messed up. We believe it might be due to the fact that this version still uses the old lava style you can see on Alpha1 shots for example, but for now we don't have any proof



Archer in Caves

  • Some spell effects