The latest iteration of the Diablo franchise is here with Diablo Immortal, but it doesn’t seem to be stirring as much interest among the MMO community as one might have assumed. Still, there are a few who descended into hell to take a look at Blizzard’s (and NetEase’s) latest offering.
We’ll kick off with Indiecator, who said that this title failed to meet already-low expectations. “While the roster of classes is quite versatile, the game kind of feels underwhelming because of the lack of customization — but there is an even bigger problem on the horizon when it comes to this title and that is its monetization model that just kind of represents a huge net designed to capture as many whales as possible.”
MMO Fallout took Wyatt Cheng to task over lying: “The idea that Diablo Immortal doesn’t sell gear is such a bold-faced lie that I’m not sure who Cheng thinks he’s fooling. Diablo Immortal cuts its gear into pieces so it can sell those pieces and then claim it’s not selling gear. Blizzard deliberately cut the most useful parts of the gear off of it so they could claim they’re not technically selling the gear or monetizing its upgrades, but monetizing the bulk of the gear’s value.”
Kitty Kitty Boom Boom was less-than-impressed by the business model: “Really, Blizzard? After years of playing Hearthstone, the final straw for me turned out to the battle pass and revamped rewards update in fall of 2020. Diablo Immortal features a multiple tier battle pass, plus a premium subscription service like an MMO.”
Tales of the Aggronaut said it was… underwhelming in a rather extensive first impressions: “It looks like Diablo and sounds like Diablo, but does not FEEL like Diablo. There is just something missing about the way the game functions that pushes it into this uncanny valley of not really feeling like the game I was looking for.”
Warcraft YouTuber Soul Breezy looked at the first two acts of the game and its monetization scheme:
Co-hosts Paul and Destin went back-and-forth about the merits and drawbacks of Diablo Immortal:
NorZZa asks whether this title is pay-to-win or not:
And if you want thoughts from someone who put in over 300 hours into the beta, here’s a video that speaks from experience:
Every day there are tons of terrific, insightful, and unusual articles posted across the MMO gaming blogosphere — and every day, Justin reads as many as he can. Global Chat is a sampling of noteworthy essays, rants, and guides from the past few weeks of MMO discourse.
