At BlizzCon 2021, we learned more about Diablo Immortal, Blizzard’s mobile entry into the iconic action RPG franchise. After a technical alpha that ended in January, we have a clearer picture of how the game is shaping – and by the developers’ own accounts, Diablo Immortal is a mobile MMO with a tone and gameplay in line with the franchise, but it could have a few own tricks.
Important things out of the way first: there is no release date yet, and it looks like the next phase will be another alpha, according to a Q&A with the press held during BlizzConline 2021. Blizzard is not announcing when the next alpha will occur (although more information about what’s to come – more on that later).
But based on the answers given by the chief designer of Diablo Immortal Wyatt Chang and the combat designer Julian Love, we know more about how the game was built to be an MMO on mobile devices, but also what adjustments to the Diablo formula were made to make it mobile-friendly, although it still looks like a game in the franchise.
Here are the main insights we got from the questions and answers:
1. It was designed to be a mobile MMO
The big revelation seems to be that the Diablo Immortal team has developed the game to be a mobile MMO – or at least an action RPG with MMO elements like voice chat, public events and dedicated dungeons to face your friends.
We were unable to get all the details in the short questions and answers, but we found that the technical alpha implemented the dungeons of four people we had heard about before. The Diablo Immortal team said they would also like to have events with more than four players, which could be larger raid-type events in the game – although they are still aspirational, and the game could be started without those events.
But the technical alpha had an extensive voice chat – not only in his group, but also on public channels. To address the public, you can leave voice memos: press and hold a dedicated ‘record’ button to save a message and a text-to-speech tool will translate and show other players a summary of your missive, which they can click on to hear your audio. This functionality is in the technical alpha that just ended.
The team is also working to implement guilds in the game: “We want you to feel that your membership and participation in a guild are important,” said Chang.
Players will operate outside the central city of Westmarch and can pass “dozens” of players as they roam. But the most crucial to the MMO experience is “that the world exists outside of you”, as Chang put it, and much like the World of Warcraft, the Diablo Immortal world is a persistent place that moves on with or without you.
2. Its gameplay is suitable for short sessions
Since the game was announced at Blizzcon 2018, players have been perplexed how the mobile game will recreate the Diablo experience – or diverge from it. In the question and answer session at BlizzConline 2021, team leaders talked about changes in gameplay and the appearance of the world to make it work on smartphones.
The Immortal team admitted the challenge of adapting the action RPG to the mobile phone controls on the screen, which means that the fingers will cover part of the action, although they noted that it was easy for players to ‘dive into the game’, as Chang described . But a more interesting fit was shaping the game to be playable in short bursts, which is suitable for mobile games.
As Chang explained, the Immortal team designed activities for a minute or three minutes or five minutes to make it satisfying for players to pick up and drop the game in brief sessions – and also make it fun for people playing three or more marathon sessions. four hours, as they do with Diablo games for PC and console.
They also lit up the game – literally – to make it easier to see people playing on their phones in different lighting conditions.
“It is beneficial for the game not to be so dark, because you have players playing in a lot of different ambient light situations and they can really struggle to see anything,” said Love. “It’s the kind of problem where a slider on the gamma knob doesn’t solve the problem. You really need enough room contrast to make sure that the visceral action remains present and people can tell what’s going on. It is a very fast game. “
So expect a brighter game, but also one with a tone between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, the developers said. Presumably, this means a more colorful game than the former’s extensively dark palette, but less vibrant than the latter, which was criticized at launch for deviating from the dark and gloomy vibes of Diablo 2.
But with these adjustments, the Immortal team is trying to maintain the ‘feeling’ of the game like its PC and console predecessors – although it probably needs trial and error to get the approach right.
“What interests me most is ‘Does It Feel Like Diablo’, and the only way to find out is to put it out in public and see if you are on the right track,” said Love.
Finally, one of the most frequent player requests in the technical alpha was for controller support, which the Diablo team said it was working on.
3. You will have unique PvP experiences, such as mini-King of the Hill events
Although the Diablo Immortal team did not finalize their PvP plans, there was a glimpse of the type of content they are making to pit the characters against each other in the technical alpha.
In an area found in the initial alpha version of the game, a treasure chest appeared every three hours, which only opened for the last player standing – essentially creating a king-of-the-hill arena around for the daring to conquer. The remaining player has to loot the chest.
This is just a preview, Chang said: “Our PVP plans are definitely more ambitious than that.”
4. There will be microtransactions, but all new classes and content will be free
As previously revealed, Diablo Immortal will be a free game with microtransactions, but players will not be able to buy equipment, which will have to be looted traditionally, for example, from the bodies of their enemies. Instead, in-game purchases allow players to purchase jewelry and things related to amulets. They are also planning to have a battle pass system with free and paid tracks.
The game will launch with six main classes and the Immortal team plans to add more, along with extra areas and content – which will be free for all players. No classes, zones or other content will have paid access, according to the team’s current plans.
“In-game purchases should never bypass gameplay. We want to structure our purchases so that it is a bonus and you feel good about it, ”said Chang.
5. May have gameplay not featured in other Diablo games
While Diablo Immortal is adhering to the beloved setting, characters and gameplay loop established on PC and console games, and zealously recreating the mobile experience, the development for the platform surprisingly gives the team the opportunity to develop some new elements other than possible in previous games.
One is a feature that Love has wanted to put in Diablo games for a decade, he says, but since all smartphone players are using the same control scheme, the Immortal team has the opportunity to establish new monster effects – like allowing that enemies freeze the ground, causing players to slide all over the place, and combine that with other environmental effects, such as the wind.
“You have a whole new problem for the players: the ground is slippery and there’s a wind blowing against you like that, and if I move with the wind I’m faster, but slipping everywhere, but if I fight against the wind , I have no traction, ”said Love. “These are entirely new problems for the player to solve.”
It is not clear how prevalent this effect, or similar effects, are in Immortal, but it is interesting to see how the design space opens up given the apparent limitations – or really, opportunities – of the cell phone.
6. The next technical alpha will likely have final game content
The technical alpha that ended in early January allowed players to access five zones and progress to level 45 in order to test the character’s progression in the middle of the game. A future alpha period – should allow players to reach the intended end of the game: level 60.
In other words, players are likely to find at least some of the game’s final content in Immortal. This is not the end of the character’s growth, of course, as there are prestige points and serve grinding to do. Future alpha phases will also have more search zones and, of course, the two classes that have not yet been included: the necromancer and the crusader.
An announcement about the next technical alpha is coming ‘soon’:
What you saw at Alfa Técnico is not all there is. Another test phase is reaching a wider audience with new content, a new class and a great game ending. Full panel: https://t.co/KZ8Jw4HShx pic.twitter.com/X73D1mmRUWFebruary 20, 2021