Your path to the Diablo IV beta may be filled with sodium and regret

Buy a KFC Double Down sandwich for early access to the Diablo IV open beta.

With Diablo IV right around the corner, Blizzard is teaming up with KFC to give players an early crack at the beta... for the small price of all your daily allowance of sodium. From now until March 18th, you can purchase the KFC Double Down — the chicken sandwich that eschews common sense, good taste, and health considerations by swapping out bread for two pieces of fried chicken — and receive early access to the open beta.

“For the love of everything holy do not eat a Double Down,” said The Verge wearables reviewer Victoria Song. “I only had 1/5th of one and I felt it rolling around, wrecking my insides for a whole 24 hours as the salt turned me into a shriveled husk.”

If you want to avoid the sandwich that managing editor Alex Cranz describes as “filled with sodium and regret,” good news — purchases of KFC’s Chicken Sandwich also qualify you for beta access. You can read all of the fine print at KFC.com.

KFC is one of those brands that is, for some reason, heavily invested in gaming. Back in 2019, it launched its own dating sim in which players could attempt to woo a bishonen-ified version of Colonel Sanders. It also has its own dedicated gaming social media brand and — you have no idea how hard it is to keep a straight face as I write this — in 2020, KFC teamed up with Cooler Master to unveil a gaming console that would also keep your chicken warm.

The Diablo IV early access open beta runs from March 17th to the 19th. The offer is only for purchases made via KFC.com or the KFC app, so please, please don’t rush to your nearest KFC restaurant lest we recreate the Great Popeyes Chicken Sandwich Frenzy of 2019. And if you’re vegan, prefer Popeyes, or are simply content to wait, Diablo IV’s regular open beta runs from March 24th through the 26th, with the game launching worldwide (some exclusions apply) June 6th.