Will Diablo Immortal’s update this week share the same fate as Diablo IV’s last week? Unlikely, as the one-year-old mobile-friendly NetEase/Blizzard collaboration launches the content patch that lays the foundation for season 16. The content in the update is relatively low-key, with a new recruit-a-friend promotion, a rebalance for warband activity Helliquary boss rewards, and battleground penalties for folks who log in only to leech.
“To encourage all players within a Battleground match to contribute to their team, we are increasing the penalty for being inactive. A player’s first infraction will result in a 5-minute queue penalty, meaning you will be unable to queue for a Battleground match for the next 5 minutes. A second infraction results in a 30-minute queue penalty, and a third infraction will make you unable to queue until the next daily reset occurs. Additionally, we will be releasing improvements to Battleground’s matchmaking in a future content update, stay tuned.”
The patch further includes “region-specific” addictions, and by region, NetEase and Blizzard just mean China; it amounts to updates to deeds of valor, the Wild Brawl PvP activity, and the Six Star Casting TLE. The deeds of valor tweaks will eventually make their way outside China, according to the studios, but Wild Brawl’s proliferation is only a “hope,” while Six Star Casting will never release to the rest of the world.
The return of the Hungering Moon event and new cosmetics to earn through the battle pass are also on offer; just note that the launches are staggered as always, so the battle pass releases August 3rd, preceded by the TLE on July 29th.
The servers go offline at 4 a.m. EDT tomorrow morning and ought to be back up with the sun.
