At BlizzCon 2021, we learned more about Diablo Immortal, Blizzard’s mobile entry in the iconic RPG franchise. After a technical alpha that ended in January, we have a clearer picture of how the game develops – and according to the developers’ own accounts, Diablo Immortal is a mobile MMO with tone and game in line with the franchise, but can a few tricks all his own.
Important things that have been cleared up first: there is no release date yet, and it looks like the next phase will be another alpha, according to a question and answer with press held during BlizzConline 2021. Blizzard does not announce when the next alpha will take place (although we did get more information about what’s coming – more on that later).
But based on answers from Diablo Immortal chief designer Wyatt Chang and combat designer Julian Love, we know more about how the game is an MMO on mobile devices, but also what adjustments have been made to the Diablo formula to make it mobile. -friendly while still feeling like a game in the franchise.
Here are the best insights we gained from the Q&A:
1. It is designed to be a mobile MMO
The big revelation seems to be that the Diablo Immortal team designed 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 share with your friends to pack.
We could not find all the details in the short questions and answers, but we did learn that the technical alpha did implement the four-person dungeons we had heard about before. The Diablo Immortal team has confirmed that they also want opportunities with more than four players, which could be bigger attacks in the game – although it is still aspiring, and the game can start without these events.
But the technical alpha had extensive voice chat – not only in your party, but also in public channels. To speak to the audience, you can leave voice notes: hold down a dedicated ‘record button’ to save a message, and a voice-to-text tool will translate other players and show a summary of your mission on which you can click to hear your sound. This feature is in the technical alpha that has just been packaged.
The team is also working to implement guilds in the game: “we want you to feel like your membership and participation in a guild,” Chang said.
Players will operate from downtown Westmarch and can pass “dozens” of players as they wander around. But more important to the MMO experience, is ‘that the world exists outside of you’, as Chang put it, and just like World of Warcraft, the Diablo Immortal world is a persistent place that goes up with or without you.
2. The game is suitable for short sessions
Since the game was announced on Blizzcon 2018, players have been amazed at how the mobile game will recreate the Diablo experience – or deviate from it. In the BlizzConline 2021 V&A, the team leaders talked about the changes to both the game and the look and feel of the world to make it work on smartphones.
The immortal team acknowledged the challenge of adapting the action RPG to the on-screen mobile control, meaning fingers would cover part of the action, although they noted that it was easy for players to get ‘right in the game to melt ‘, as Chang described it. But a more interesting adaptation was to shape the game to be playable in short sessions, matching mobile games.
As Chang explains, the Immortal team designed activities for one minute or three minutes or five minutes so that it would be satisfying for players who picked up the game and put it down for short sessions – and yet also had fun for people who ran marathons of three play. or four hours, as with the computer and console Diablo games.
They also made the game brighter – literally – to make it easier for people playing on their phones in different lighting conditions.
“It benefits the game not to be so dark because there are players playing in a bunch of different ambient light situations, and they can really struggle to see anything,” Love said. ‘This is the kind of problem where a gamma button does not fix the problem. You really need enough environmental contrast to make sure that the gut action is present and that people can discern what is going on. This is a very fast game. ”
So expect a bright game, but also one with a tone between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, the developers said. Presumably, this means a more colorful gameplay than the former’s extensive dark palette, but less vivid than the latter, which was paralyzed at launch to move away from Diablo 2’s dull, gloomy atmosphere.
But with these tweaks, the Immortal team is trying to make the game ‘feel’ like its predecessors on PC and console, though it’s likely to do trial and error to use the right approach.
“The biggest thing I care about is ‘feel like diablo’, and the only way to find out is to put it in public and see if it’s on the right track,” Love said.
Finally, one of the more frequent player requests was in the technical alpha for controller support, which worked according to the Diablo team.
3. It has unique PvP experiences, such as mini-King of the Hill opportunities
Although the Diablo Immortal team has not yet finalized their PvP plans, there was a look at the kind of content they make to pit characters in the technical alpha.
In one area found in the early alpha version of the game, a treasure chest would pop up every three hours, which would only open for the last player standing – who was in fact a king-of-the-hill arena for it would create for the daring to conquer. Whatever player remains, the chest must be looted.
This is just a preview, Chang said: “Our PVP plans are definitely more ambitious than that.”
4. It will have microtransactions, but all new classes and content are free
As already revealed, Diablo Immortal will be a free game with microtransactions, but players can not buy equipment that has to be traditionally looted, for example from the bodies of your enemies. Instead, in-game purchases allow players to purchase jewelery and charm items. They also plan to have a battle pass system with free and paid tracks.
The game launches with six core classes and the Immortal team plans to add more, along with additional areas and content – available to every player for free. No classes, zones or other content will be paid for according to the team’s current plans.
‘Purchases in the game should never bypass the game. We want to structure our purchases in such a way that it is a bonus and you feel good about it, ”Chang said.
5. It may have the gameplay not found in other Diablo games
While Diablo Immortal adheres to the beloved environment, characters and gameplay established in the computer and console games, and diligently recreates the experience for mobile devices, it surprisingly offers the team the opportunity to develop new elements that would not be possible in previous games.
One is a feature that Love has wanted to use in Diablo games for a decade, but because every smartphone player uses the same control scheme, the Immortal team has the opportunity to create new monster effects – such as killing enemies let to freeze the ground, and let players slide everywhere, and combine it with other environmental effects like wind.
‘You have this whole new problem for players: the ground is slippery and there is a wind blowing this way, and when I move with the wind, I slide faster, but when I fight against the wind, I have no traction , ”Love said. “These are completely new problems that the player has to solve.”
It’s unclear how common this effect, or effects, is with Immortal, but it’s interesting to see how the design space opens up, given the apparent limitations – or really opportunities – of mobile devices.
6. The following technical alpha is likely to contain endgame content
The technical alpha, completed in early January, gave players access to five zones and advanced to level 45 to test the middle game of character progression. A future alpha period – should allow players to climb to the final goal of the game: level 60
In other words, players are likely to encounter at least some of the endgame content in Immortal. Of course, this is not the end of character growth, because there are prestige points and outliers. Future alpha phases will also have more quest and of course the two classes not yet included: the necromancer and the crusader.
An announcement about the following technical alpha is coming ‘coming soon’:
What you saw in the Technical Alpha is not everything. Another testing phase comes after a larger audience with new content, a new class, and an important endgame. Full panel: https://t.co/KZ8Jw4HShx pic.twitter.com/X73D1mmRUW20 February 2021