Diablo Immortal

Diablo Immortal didn't get the best reveal back in Blizzcon 2018, their timing was just terrible with Diablo players being pretty much starved with the 2nd expansion for Diablo III being cancelled and turned into a character pack. It was really a slap in the face for Diablo fans to see that the future of their franchise being relocated to mobile gaming, a direction that most fans found it unacceptable. If only they had did the reveal at the same time as Diablo IV all would have been taken more well and see it more as a side game and not the "main" Diablo game project.

Fast forward to 4 years later and the game is finally revealed, one of the longest development cycle for a mobile game ever. Blizzard really had to get this one right as the initial backlash for the game had to be redeemed with their standard for high quality games. The beta feedback had been excellent from mostly all that had a chance to play, featuring a long end game that was much stronger than the one tacked on to Diablo III which was not designed to be a game with that in mind. As soon as I jumped in I was blown away just how good everything was, while designed for Mobile I am playing the windows version with good old mouse and keyboard (the proper way to play a Diablo game IMO), the controls felt pretty fluid and nearly on par with the big other games of the genre. Graphics are excellent along with a storyline full of voice acting, there's definitely lots of work put into all this and it's not just another game.

The game has tons of content and the systems are introduced as you progress, and while they are introduced at a good pace it can easily get overwhelming with the amount of things to do. The main difference with regular Diablo games is that this one is designed as a MMORPG with group activities being a focus, as you'll explore the areas you'll see other players in your zone and you might get world events and such similar to how you see those in Destiny games. The game features 8-man raids too against very strong bosses, along with a ton of activities like dungeons, rifts, pvp and more even as you join your clan and choose between Shadows or Immortals. Once you reach the endgame, you'll have a ton of checklist activities to do everyday and it's not something I can keep up compared to some more dedicated players.

There are 6 classes and each of them feature a variety of skills, you will assign 1 main attack and 4 skills so you won't be using them all and there's different strategies within each class. The builds however are more defined with the legendary equipment which modify one of the skills into making something more powerful or different, and thankfully there is an essence system which allows you to transfer your legendary power into another legendary piece of equipment (if you found a higher level piece of gloves for example). This does give you some good chase items to get once you reach the endgame, and the RNG gods do have to be with you for that. Overall the itemization is pretty good, perhaps not mindblowing but definitely satisfying from my point of view.

I'm happy that the game doesn't work with seasons/leagues, as I was getting a little tired of replaying the campaign over and over again in Path of Exile to access the new content. I was looking for a Diablo-like game where I can just play at my own pace and continue growing stronger slowly, without really any limits. This game definitely feels that void, and feels a little more "Diablo" than Lost Ark a game that is great in its own ways but didn't really scratch that Diablo itch with its combat.

The big subject around this game is the monetization with its pay 2 win mechanics. While it would have been nice to go with only cosmetics and/or xp boosts, the game does offer to buy power in a form. Legendary gems are something that you can acquire faster by pulling out the credit card, but even there you aren't guaranteed to get a 5 star one and the results are really random. The whales that are spending mega bucks are getting an advantage in the PvP mode, which is actually pretty fun in its 8vs8 battleground. If you plan on being #1 on the leaderboards, yeah this game is unfair for that as a F2P player. This aspect of the game has been overblown by streamers and youtube content creators (and by result made its way to gaming sites and all social media), because it's such a minimal part of the game. There are no paywalls otherwise you can fully complete the 20 hour campaign and continue far into the end game without any road blocks, the payments definitely optional and does feel like all the other modes are just made to progress naturally. But unfortunately the discourse around the game is all around this, pretty much ignoring 99% of the rest of the game which is done quite excellently.

So yeah I think Diablo Immortal is great. I've been having a lot of fun everyday since it dropped, it gives me that great Diablo satisfaction and there's always something to do (currently Paragon Lvl 6 at the time of writing). Just ignore the cash shop and play at your own pace and you have a great game here, despite what the rest of the people are saying. Of course if you want to protest against any pay to win mechanics you can drop your 0.5 rating like most of the angry gaming fans. Anyway to each his own, this is my jam. Really looking forward to all the additional content that will come to it with time, I feel it's going to be an ever better experience in the future.