Earlier today, Blizzard attempt to offset Activision-Blizzard’s dismal quarterly financials with the news that Diablo Immortal is launching in June – and on PC to boot with “with cross-play and cross-progression.” And if you are currently wondering why on earth the company would do that, well, the obvious answer is money. But the less obvious answer is spelled out in a dev blog.
“On one hand, we felt that we wouldn’t be doing the title justice by releasing a game originally designed for mobile on PC; on the other hand, we wanted to make sure the game reached as many players as possible – especially our most dedicated PC fans,” Blizzard says. “In the end, the deciding factor was that we knew many of you would attempt to play this game through an emulator, thus leading us towards building a better experience.”
To adapt the originally mobile-oriented game for PC, the studio says it’s scaled up the interface and HUD, though some menus might wind up feeling a bit big on PC, and it’s “meticulously translated” controls to mouse and keyboard, so your clicking finger will still get the workout you’d expect from an MMOARPG. It’ll also boast WASD direction controls to allow players to move while attacking. Of course, you can ignore all that and just plug in a controller too.
And as for chat? Yes, there’s a complete chat system. It’s an MMOARPG, after all.
“Diablo Immortal on PC is an experiment from Blizzard. We didn’t originally plan to put this game on desktop—but as soon as it became a possibility, we knew we had to take the time to make it happen. If you’re a longtime Diablo player, the result will feel a little different from other PC Diablo games—but we’re extremely excited about clicking Immortal’s demons dead with our mouse, and we hope you will be too. We understand that many of you are seasoned PC veterans, and we want to arm you with familiar tools as you journey back through Sanctuary. This is a thank you letter from Blizzard, and we hope to see you all in hell when PC enters Open Beta in June!”
