Blizzard is going all-in on mobile gaming. More after the jump!
Fresh off the heels of BlizzCon 2018’s Diablo Immortal reveal, and fiery reactions to the announcement, Blizzard has made it clear the mobile gaming will be a core area for their future development.
At a news conference held during this year’s BlizzCon, Executive Producer Allen Adham spoke about the new direction Blizzard is taking with a shift towards a plethora of new mobile games. “In terms of Blizzard’s approach to mobile gaming, many of us over the last few years have shifted from playing primarily desktop to playing many hours on mobile, and we have many of our best developers now working on new mobile titles across all of our IPs. Some of them are with external partners, like Diablo: Immortal; many of them are being developed internally only, and we’ll have information to share on those in the future.” This new direction is a far cry from Blizzard’s work in the past, and makes it clear that Diablo won’t be the only series seeing new additions taking place in the mobile realm.
While some fans hoped that Immortal would be a fluke one-off mobile foray for Blizzard, these statements show that fans should prepare for many more chapters of their favorite franchises taking place on mobile. Reaction on social media to the announcement has been mixed, with some commenters on Reddit fearing for the future of Blizzard. In one of Tuesday’s trending threads on /Games, the top comment feared what this new focus could mean for Blizzard’s non-mobile future, stating, “I hope ‘best developers now working on new mobile titles’ doesn’t mean they’re putting PC gaming on the back burner but that’s what it sounds like when paired with them saying the primarily play mobile games now.”
It remains to be seen what, if any, effect this new mobile focus will have on the future of PC and console development at the studio, but one thing is for certain: Blizzard won’t be putting down the phone any time soon.