After weeks of hype, the latest Diablo game has been revealed, but it is far from what fans expected. Find out more after the jump!
Fans of the Diablo series finally got their first taste of the newest game to hit the franchise with Friday’s reveal of Diablo Immortal at the annual BlizzCon convention in Irvine. After weeks of speculation from fans and hype-building from Blizzard, expectations were high for a major reveal, despite Blizzard’s recent attempts to temper such hopes. However, what was revealed was far from the dream of Diablo 4 or a similar product for console and PC gamers alike. Instead, Blizzard uttered words more terrifying to gamers than even Diablo himself: mobile game.
The game is being developed by NetEase, a Chinese company with several mobile games under their umbrella. During a question and answer panel, Blizzard confirmed they have no current plans to bring the game to any medium other than mobile devices. Immortal will explore the time period between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 with new stories for familiar faces, helping to fill in the gaps in the larger story of the series.
To say reactions have been intense and overwhelmingly negative would be an understatement. As of 3 a.m. Saturday morning, the game’s cinematic trailer has received over 176,000 dislikes vs. just over 6,000 likes on YouTube, with dislikes increasing with almost every refresh of the page. Dislikes are also pouring down on the gameplay trailer, with 81,000 dislikes vs. almost 4000 likes. On Reddit, the top threads of the day on the /Diablo and /Diablo3 subreddits are filled with anger, disappointment and disdain for Immortal. At BlizzCon itself, one fan asked developers if the reveal was an “April Fools joke”, and the audience let out rarely-heard booing at the announcement of lack of PC support.
Fans have expressed many concerns about the prospect of moving the franchise, at least for the time, into the mobile market. Mobile games are notorious for their heavy reliance on micro-transactions, asking for ever-more money from players. NetEase in particular has a range of games with many micro-transactions in place, so it isn’t improbable to fear the nuisance plaguing Immortal. Others have pointed out the gameplay reveal shows a striking similarity to another NetEase game, Crusaders of Light. Still more outrage has been aimed at being forced to adopt a new platform to continue to explore the experience and story gamers first encountered on other platforms, especially one so very different from consoles and computers.
Debate has risen about just what audience the game is aimed at. An “east vs. west” mentality has become apparent in some circles, such as Reddit and Twitter. While mobile games have a bad reputation among Western players such as those who have played the Diablo series so far, mobile games similar to Immortal have done incredibly well in Asian markets. NCSoft’s Lineage 2: Revolution has been a colossal success overseas. Such a market could prove quite lucrative for Blizzard to break into, but could risk alienating existing fans and customers. If new customers who have never played Diablo before are the focus, why Blizzard did not simply opt for yet-another Diablo 3 port is another questions fans are facing; similar ports faced little anger from fans in the past.
The most puzzling aspect of the announcement is why it was made at BlizzCon at all. Announcing a mobile game at a convention almost entirely devoted to non-mobile games and gamers seems doomed from the start. Furthermore, BlizzCon is primarily attended by Western gamers, a market quite hostile to mobile games, as the reaction to the game’s trailers can attest to. It seems almost inevitable that announcing a transition, at least temporarily, of a much-beloved Blizzard franchise to the mobile games platform would go poorly at BlizzCon. Matters were made only worse by building so much hype leading up to the game’s announcement, including giving it the fabled “end of opening ceremonies” time slot and immediate first main stage panel position, something usually reserved for announcements and reveals much more in line with what existing players would expect and support. All of this is leaving fans in fear that Immortal could be part of growing disconnect between Blizzard and their players.