Diablo 4 has been in the wild for over a week now, and one of its occasional delights is the wild: the glimpses of fauna amidst the hell-beasts, the cute little bunnies out snuffling for food as the battle twixt good and evil unfolds around them. Inevitably, as you and the forces of hell are splashing AoEs across Sanctuary, there is collateral damage. And while you'll never weep a tear for the thousands of ghouls slaughtered, seeing the corpse of a fluffy thing caught in the crossfire surely melts even a Demon Hunter's heart.
For reasons best known to itself, Blizzard decided this was just the job for what I'm going to call the game's worst achievement: Endangered Species. The achievement gives a list of various wildlife in the game that players have to work their way through and, presented with such instructions, the deadliest min-maxers in Sanctuary set out to hunt down innocent wildlife that has nothing to do with heaven or hell.
Diablo 4 launched on June 6, and the only thing we can say for our animal friends is they had a good run. Over the first few days sheep, roosters, goats and donkeys were shanked by the truck-load, but a few hardy animals managed to avoid detection. There's a thread tracking their progress on the subreddit and the day-by-day updates make for some sobering reading:
- EDIT 09.06.23: Rabbit seems to be bugged, does not count towards achievement right now, killable horse is yet to be seen
- EDIT 10.06.23: Rabbit has been found, proceed to exterminate
You earned that extra day of life, Thumper. As these entries suggest, the last hold-out was a horse. Just a horse who's done no wrong.
Then 23 hours ago, disaster. "Killable horse found," typed Somebody Dead, sharing the animal's location and an image. It's locked in a stable, not even able to run.
How horrifying. Good work. https://t.co/fZZ1rlzlmjJune 11, 2023
They were merciless. "Stand at north exit [as Sorcerer], face towards inside the city, activate Unstable Currents, stand in place and spam Arc Lash to cast Lightning Spears," says jakuri69. "One of them will kill the horse". GreenIVIMachine says "Pulverize on Druid with Shockwave Aspect [...] took care of the horse". The Necros use blood wave. Apparently it can be done with a level 1 rogue somehow.
Such is the fate of this particular videogame horse. Trammelled away in a stable, never to roam free, waiting for an endless procession of souped-up Diablo 4 'heroes' to waltz through and give it the quickfire equivalent of a trip to the glue factory. I know Diablo is supposed to be a grim place but this… hey, someone get PETA on the line (please don't).
Horse murder aside, the biggest Diabo 4 news over the weekend was the discovery of the greatest hat in the series. The game's toughest boss finally fell in hardcore thanks to a barbarian named Spinnywinny. PC Gamer's review is now live, in which Tyler Colp found an awful lot to love about the game, but at the same time "almost buries everything that makes it great".
