Recently, there has been quiet around the upcoming mobile game Diablo Immortal. Blizzard president J. Allen Brack recently spoke in an interview about how the company plans to conquer the mobile market while not losing sight of its PC fans.
What is Diablo Immortal? Diablo Immortal aims to bring the typical hack-&-slash experience of the series to mobile devices. The mobile game is intended to provide the familiar Diablo feel, complete with loot and playing with friends.
In Diablo Immortal, players will have the choice of six Diablo characters that come with both familiar and new abilities.
By the way, Diablo Immortal is not the only mobile game that Blizzard is currently working on. The company is reportedly “developing or having developed many mobile titles simultaneously”.
What does the Blizzard president say? In an interview with VentureBeat, J. Allen Brack spoke about the hurdles Blizzard has encountered in the transition to mobile titles.
Brack mentioned that the announcement of Diablo Immortal was more challenging than he expected. However, it is important that the teams are working on the future of WoW, Diablo, Overwatch, and all the other franchises.
When asked how Blizzard plans to develop games for the mobile market while remaining true to its PC fan base, Brack responded:
I don’t think it’s a requirement that every game is liked by every player. If they’re not a mobile gamer, then our goal is for them to try the game at least once – but not every game is suited for every player. Mobile is its own platform, similar to PC, similar to console. When you think about the different games you have on console, many games on console have a slightly different feel than PC games. It will be different. It will be a good, authentic experience for the Blizzard games that we bring to this platform, but it will not aim to replicate the PC experience.
J. Allen Brack, VentureBeat
What was the problem with Diablo Immortal? Diablo Immortal was announced at BlizzCon 2018. Leading up to the event, there were rumors of a major announcement related to Diablo, which some fans interpreted as a hint for Diablo 4.
The announcement of Diablo Immortal was not well received by the players. One fan even asked the developers if it was a belated April Fool’s joke.
Where is the game? Blizzard has not yet announced a release date for Diablo Immortal. The Chinese studio Netease, which Blizzard is collaborating with for the development of Diablo Immortal, stated that the work on the game is essentially completed. The launch thus lies entirely in the hands of Activision Blizzard.
