In an exclusive worldwide interview, MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski spoke with two leading developers about Diablo Immortal. Wyatt Cheng (Game Director) and Joe Grubb (Principal Game Designer) revealed among other things more about the length of the story campaign and how it will be structured.
The release of Diablo Immortal is expected to happen in the first half of 2022. In the last beta test phase, in which MeinMMO participated, the MMORPG was already very polished. Our impression after the tests was that mainly only fine-tuning is missing.
The release should therefore not take much longer. We took this opportunity to talk with Blizzard about Diablo Immortal in an interview.
The main story could be completed in under 10 hours if played linearly
When I asked Wyatt Cheng and Joe Grubb about the campaign length of Diablo Immortal, Game Director Cheng looked thoughtfully upwards and chewed on his answer for a while.
It was clear to see that he didn’t want to say anything wrong and that assessing the exact length wasn’t easy for him. Because the MMORPG doesn’t offer a linear experience in that sense.
Wyatt Cheng explained how the story campaign is structured: ‘Different people take different amounts of time. I hesitate with the answer because our story is structured with 8 zones. But you can’t just teleport to the zone, play the story, and be done.
The story in each area takes about 15 to 45 minutes. Or let’s say, about half an hour. But each of them has a level cap. The ‘Guts Marsh’ is for level 40-45. Once you reach level 40, you can experience the story there, which in turn continues the story of the previous zone and will be continued later.
Once you have completed the main story quest in this zone, you will find other activities such as Elder Rifts, bounties, or dungeons to gain enough EXP to reach the required level for the next zone.
If there were only the story without levels, you would probably be done in under 10 hours. But there is this whole other content that you can complete.’
‘Immortal is the biggest and most ambitious Diablo yet’
Principal Game Designer Joe Grubb added that there will be more story content than just the campaign:
‘Immortal is the biggest and most ambitious Diablo yet. That’s why there’s not just the one quest line, but a lot of content around it as well. Also story-driven content like side quests with characters you help. It really depends on how much you want to engage. If you ignore all this content, it goes pretty fast. But if you want to experience Immortal fully, then it’s a significantly larger experience.’
What about German voice acting?
In recent years at MeinMMO, I have learned that many of you care about German voice acting. That’s why I asked whether there would be one.
Unfortunately, I have to disappoint you here. It is not planned for the release.
Cheng explained to me that there will be a voice-over for the main story in English and a few languages, but not including German. However, there will be German subtitles for the English voice acting and German text in the user interface.
However, keep in mind that Diablo Immortal is a live-service game that is supposed to be continuously developed. In the future, there may be a possibility that a German voiceover will come.
Here’s the link to the second part of the interview: The heads of Diablo Immortal say: ‘Diablo Immortal is a large and ambitious MMO’
Overall, we spoke for half an hour with Wyatt Cheng and Joe Grubb. In the second part, we discuss the following topics:
- the changes that occurred between beta and release
- the social systems of the MMORPG
- the balance between PvE and PvP content and guild systems
- the required specs
