Diablo Immortal

Diablo Immortal can still be fun, but there are some undeniable flaws that hurt the experience.

Despite the incendiary feedback from some of the fans, we have to admit that we had a pretty good time with Diablo Immortal. Far from being original, the Blizzard/NetEase Hack'n Slash is pleasant to handle with touch or pad. In addition, the main adventure is fun to navigate, especially for newcomers. However, the post-level 30 progression based on level-locked missions is disconcerting, even if this mechanism would be used by other free-to-play. It is especially the excessive monetization, both ubiquitous and obscure, which greatly moderates our enthusiasm, although usual for a NetEase game. Nevertheless, Diablo Immortal remains fun for casual players who don't aim to become unbeatable warriors in PvP. Passed a course, the attractive adventure turns into a hardcore F2P MMO nightmare. Ultimately, these are two very different types of players who are invited to meet on the lands of Sanctuary. For better (action-RPG on mobile) and for worse (for monetization).

Diablo Immortal is as engaging as any Diablo, but only initially. You sure can have fun here, and I myself became engrossed in this world, trying to discover as much of it as possible - I was just curious what kind of a game it was. Unfortunately, with the current shape of its in-game economy, Immortal turns out to be an uncomfortable money-grab effort more than anything else.

Diablo Immortal is a simplified and more accessible version of the series that can still provide hours of mindless fun and entertainment. Sadly, the games suffers in the long run because of all the tedious grinding and the greedy monetization system, making a game experience that starts as very enjoyable much less so as time goes on.

In the end there’s a great game at the core of Diablo: Immortal, and it’s one that looks, feels and plays, exactly like a Diablo game built for mobile should. In expanding the scope to include a robust system of MMO activities, ways to play, and adding many simple progression systems that all feed into each other, what makes Diablo and other games like it so special was lost along the way. Despite the free-to-play mobile design and stingy end-game rewards, I still wanted to keep playing. The tragedy is, Diablo: Immortal didn’t want me to. It wants nothing more than for me to sign-in, play for a few minutes, log-out, and come back tomorrow.

For casual or moderate players who don't want to be competitive, Diablo Immortal proves to be a fun and enjoyable game on mobile, which adapts the gameplay of the Diablo license well. Invested players, on the other hand, will struggle with artificially slowed progression, completely insane premium store prices to optimize their character, and a barely functional PC version. The whole multiplayer aspect of the title is also terribly clunky and artificial. If you don't think you'll be able to resist the temptations of impulse buying, avoid it. Otherwise, it's possible to get invested in it and enjoy it in the long run.

I want to make this clear: without microtransactions in play at all, Diablo Immortal is actually a fun little multiplayer-centric take on the formula, especially on its native mobile home.

Diablo Immortal stands as an entertaining action RPG, but it suffers from heavy pay2win systems and annoying grind.

For most of my time with Diablo Immortal, I was pleasantly surprised. But when I reached the endgame content it became clear that all of that was to trap me in an exploitative revenue scheme. I would have been more than willing to buy a battle pass here and there or even some cosmetics or expansions to support Diablo Immortal into the future, but its bold and scummy approach to manipulating vulnerable players not only soured my entire experience with the game but marks a dangerous cornerstone in the monetization of similar products in the future.

After the WWII ended, there was a rise of certain phenomena among indigenous population of the Pacific, called “cargo cult”. It feels like the very same cultists were in charge of Diablo Immortal: it has superficial resemblance to the real thing, but it lacks any real substance. [Issue#260, p.36]

Diablo Immortal seems like a project created with the sole purpose of using the good name of Diablo to rub the players of their money. Definitely one of the worst games ever came out of Blizzard.