Blizzard loses another key employee. Caleb Arseneaux, the Production Director of Diablo Immortal, has announced that he will be leaving the company. And this right before the game launches.
Who is the Lead Producer? Caleb Arseneaux has been with Blizzard since August 2018, so just over 3 years. He entered the industry as a developer for the indie game Scribblenauts and then came to Blizzard via Disney.
Most recently, he served as Lead Producer for the development of the mobile game Diablo Immortal, which is currently being created in collaboration with NetEase.
On linked.in, Arseneaux shared that this is now his “last week” at Blizzard:
Blizzard loses key employees: Arseneaux is leaving the company shortly after Jen Oneal, the former co-head of Blizzard. She announced in early November that she was leaving Blizzard.
Oneal was along with Mike Ybarra the new leadership duo of Blizzard after the resignation of J. Allen Brack. She left the company after just 3 months in her new job.
The Game Director of Diablo Immortal, Wyatt Cheng, however, remains with Blizzard and continues to work on the game. So at least one pillar for development is still there.
In the podcast, MeinMMO addresses the question of whether Blizzard still has a future:
Diablo Immortal in Closed Beta, Release 2022
What is the status of Diablo Immortal? Currently, Diablo Immortal is in Closed Beta, which is set to run for 3 months since October 29. However, only selected players from Canada and Australia, as well as the press, will participate, and later also from Asia.
In the beta, the Necromancer will be available as a new class to test, along with new PvP modes and some enhanced features. A controller support is now also available in the game. You can find more about it in our overview: Everything we know about the Closed Beta of Diablo Immortal
Although Immortal caused a lot of discontent upon its announcement among fans of the franchise, the Mobile ARPG is now being received quite well. The first testers say: Immortal plays like Diablo 3, only better.
The development will likely continue as before. Arseneaux describes the team as “passionate” and “talented”. However, it is currently difficult to say how much his departure will affect the production.
At the moment, it is mainly up to the beta testers to provide feedback and to the developers to implement it. Some of the experts and streamers have already pointed out issues like long wait times that need to be resolved before release.
When will the game be released? The release of the ARPG is planned for 2022 on Android and iOS. A PC version is currently not in planning; however, the game can be played through emulators like BlueStacks.
Officially, these are not supported, but also not forbidden. Currently, we count Diablo Immortal among our 8 most promising new MMOs and MMORPGs on MeinMMO.
