Diablo: Immortal Blizzard’s bad November Fools Joke
Blizzard has managed to raise quite the ire of Diablo fans this week after announcing the latest game in the series, Diablo: Immortal, would be exclusive to mobile.
During what was quite possibly the most awkward press conference in BlizzCon history, one audience member remarked that Immortal seemed to have many features PC users had been requesting. He then asked whether these features, or the game itself, would be brought to PC.
“Do you guys not have phones?”, one Blizzard representative sarcastically quipped, which was met by a round of boos and jeers from the audience.
Another audience member asked whether the game was a poorly timed April Fools joke by the company.
Unfortunately for die hard Diablo PC fans, it’s not. Immortal is indeed real, and it’s already up for pre-register on Google Play. According to its description, Immortal boasts itself as “a brand new, visceral Diablo action RPG at your finger tips,” with six character classes, new zones and dungeons, and social MMO elements.
Rather than making the game themselves, Blizzard farmed out development to Chinese mobile studio NetEase. The company’s games appear to be competently made, at least as far as mobile goes, and are well received on the Play Store.
Sharp eyed fans, however, noticed that Diablo: Immortal bares some striking similarities to another NetEase game, Eternal Arena. This has led to accusations that Immortal is just a cheap re-skin of the older title, and will not be able to offer the true Diablo experience due to the limited controls of mobile devices.
Meanwhile, others have expressed concerns that the series will go free-to-play and be a vehicle for micro-transactions, much like other NetEase games, or EA’s new Command & Conquer. Blizzard has not confirmed the pricing scheme, or the presence of micro-transactions in the game.
At the time of writing, the game’s official trailer on YouTube had garnered 375 thousand dislikes, compared to just 12 thousand likes, with fans being quite vocal about their disapproval in the comments.
The Diablo franchise is certainly no stranger to controversy. The PC version of the third entry included always-online DRM which would boot players off if an internet connection was lost. Server issues upon release resulted in many fans finding the game unplayable. The company’s Korean offices were later raided by the nation’s Fair Trade Commission, eventually forcing Blizzard to offer full refunds.
As hinted on above, this is not the only major PC franchise this year that has seen a mobile exclusive port. EA’s popular real-time-strategy game Command & Conquer is set to release on iOS and Android. A move which also angered fans of the series. It would seem that more large studios are looking to move their big franchises to the mobile sphere as ludicrously profitable micro-transaction have been ill received on traditional gaming platforms.
