So I saw that a few people were interesting in discussing the game, so I thought I'd do an information round-up.
I've included some extra information about the PC/Console stuff at the front for the curious.
https://www.diablofans.com/
PC/Console Stuff:
I've included some extra information about the PC/Console stuff at the front for the curious.
https://www.diablofans.com/
PC/Console Stuff:
- Diablo Immortal is not coming to PC or consoles. However, if you want to the emulator route, they won't try to block emulators from running the game. They do note that they think the control scheme won't map particularly well to PC/mouse though.
- However, Blizzard noted that a lot of the new things they're doing in Diablo Immortal are quite likely to show up in future Diablo games. These are some of the most likely judging by other Blizzard statements, job postings, and hirings:
- The shared "MMO" zones that have 8+ players and world bosses.
- The instanced 4 player dungeons built around unique gameplay scenarios and more challenging content.
- The shared MMO town.
- The live service model where they regularly add new classes, areas, items, monsters, stories, etc to the game instead of waiting a zillion years for an expansion pack.
- Please note, I could be wrong about the above, but I feel like 90%+ confident on this given everything surrounding the next Diablo and their various statements. There could also be other things, but I feel less confident about calling those as extremely likely. I'll also detail all of the above things in more detail below, but I wanted a quick summary here.
- Blizzard noted they still have multiple unannounced Diablo games in the works, even after announcing Diablo Immortal. Those are, most likely, Diablo 4 (or whatever they call it) and a Diablo 1 and/or 2 Remaster. They've been hiring both for a new PC/console Diablo game, and for Diablo on the Classic Games team (they make the remasters).
- Blizzard has noted that their other mobile-first games will most likely be crossplatform a la Hearthstone. The reason this one isn't is probably a mix of it very likely being redundant with Diablo 4's feature set, and that they have to share revenue with Netease, whereas the other 2+ mobile games they're making seem entirely internally developed, and far less redundant with their existing products.
- In case you were curious, those other mobile games seem to be an MMORTS (probably Warcraft), and some kind of co-op board game RPG thing (I thought this was Diablo, but maybe not).
- So, to lead off here, the game seems pretty early in development, so a lot of things aren't nailed down. However, some things are very nailed down. I'll try to be clear when things aren't nailed down.
- The game is developed across both Blizzard and NetEase. I get the sense that NetEase has a larger team than Blizzard, but Blizzard has more senior positions on their side. Blizzard is not just overseeing it, but are actively participating in making the game, and the staff who are working on it on the Blizzard side all seem to be Diablo 3 big wigs.
- While most of the Blizzard staff weren't willing to say what the business model, one of the three leaders of Blizzard noted that it's free 2 play, but that they haven't decided what they're monetizing beyond that. This is a no brainer, but just in case you were curious, there you go. Said same leader pointed to Overwatch, Heroes, and Hearthstone for examples of how they handle free 2 play-ish business models.
- The game will have 6 classes at launch: Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Wizard, Monk, Crusader, and Necromancer. More classes will be added over time, with them specifically hinting at the Assassin and Witch Doctor, so those are probably the first two coming post launch.
- The game has three types of areas at launch. They're a bit different than normal, so I'm using sub-bullets here:
- Westmarch: This is the main town. Instead of a normal Diablo hub, it works like an MMO town, where there are a bunch of players everywhere. If you've seen Ogrimmar in WoW or The Tower in Destiny, you know what you're getting here. I believe there's only one town, at least at launch.
- Outdoor Zones: These are fixed design (non-randomized, hand crafted) shared areas that hold 8+ players at a time. It sounds like it might actually be a lot more than 8 players, but that they were still deciding. These are generally easier than the instanced dungeons, but also contain difficult world bosses and dynamic events. These areas will have lots of recognizable landmarks throughout them. There are 8 of these at launch, each with its own unique tileset/visual design. Three of them are Bilefen (a swamp/bog), Zoltan Kulle's Library (an arcane library), and the Shassar Sea (a desert).
- Instanced Dungeons: These are semi-randomized dungeons for groups of four players. [Edit: It sounds like these can be solo'ed.] These are generally harder than the outdoor zones, and include specialized gameplay scenarios/experiences. Examples include the Kikuras Rapids (where you float on a raft while being beset by monsters), Tomb of Fahir (a dungeon where you need to unlock seals to progress), and Forgotten Tower (which is based off the Diablo 2 area, but with some special mechanics they didn't reveal). There are 7 of these at launch, each with their own unique tileset (that is also separate from the tilesets of the Outdoor Zones).
- The game generally plays like Diablo. Each class has at least 12 skills to choose from, and you can equip five of them at a time. This is slightly less than Diablo 3, which let you equip 6 at a time, but some of those were passives you cast once every 10 minutes, which I don't think exist here. Some of these abilities have multiple activation steps.
- For an example of a more complex ability (and ability interaction), Ice Crystal is an ability where you first place a crystal, and then press the button again to explode it. However, if you don't explode the crystal, you can fire Ray of Frost through it and turn Ray of Frost into an ability that shoots multiple targets at once.
- There are also two potion buttons. Don't know if they can also be used for other things.
- The way skills work is you press a button on the right hand side, and then the ability either immediately fires off, or gives you a targeting analog stick to use on your right thumb. This is a very common control method for games like this in China, as people have noticed.
- In the demo, the skills did not use mana, and only used cooldowns. However, Blizzard noted that they were using mana only a few weeks ago, and that they're not happy with cooldowns only, so they're going to try a charge system where you can hold and use multiple charges of an ability, and then they recharge sequentially. They noted that they could end up with any of the three systems (Mana, Cooldowns, Charges), or something entirely different at launch, but that currently their favorite is charges.
- The Blizzcon demo area is not in the final game, and was made to be notably easy since people may have never played a game like this on their phone before, but that the final game will be both notably harder than it in terms of base difficulty, and that the final game will have a wide variety of difficulty among the content you can engage with (i.e. dungeons are harder than the open world area).
- The game is generally following the Sid Meier formula of 1/3rd the same, 1/3rd evolved, 1/3 brand new. You can even see this in the ability list, where some are exactly like Diablo 2 or Diablo 3, some are changed, and some are brand new.
- The game takes place 5 years after Diablo 2, but 15 years before Diablo 3, when a demon called Skarn is invading, and a bunch of people are chasing after fragments of the World Stone. It also covers plotpoints like the founding of the Demon Hunters, Adria and Maghda's activities, various Baal lore, Maltheal's disappearance, and what Leah and Deckard Cain were doing.
- Valla is in this game, suggesting that they're continuing to canonize the Heroes of the Storm versions of the Diablo heroes. They already technically did so in Diablo 3 by making new Sets and Legendaries with their names on it, but this is the first time they will appear directly in the game. For those who don't know, Valla is a female Demon Hunter, and you go adventuring with her and her teacher in the desert in this game.
- It sounds like there's actually going to be a lot of story in this game. A lot of it will be delivered by talking to NPCs, but some of it will also happen in conversations out in the field. They'll also follow Blizzard's standard model of having extra stuff like shorts/comics/books/shows/etc. They were clear that they won't make you read 300+ word quest descriptions though.
- Items are in the game, and are being heavily worked on. What they have committed to though is that Legendary items will be present that have huge impacts on how your game plays, similar to how Legendaries are today in Diablo 3. Items will also impact your appearance.
- There will also be item customization of some sort. Items currently have sockets, though they're not sure if that's the only system, or if they might end up with different things entirely. Crafting would probably play into this system if it's in the game.
- They want to put some form of item trading back in the game. They definitely don't want the auction house system, or sitting in trade channels reading trade spam, but they also would like for there to be some way to exchange items. Ultimately, they're not sure trading will ship, but they're looking into it.
- New content releases will come out frequently, but the exact rate at which they release is not yet decided. This probably isn't surprising, given like half of the systems in the game aren't even nailed down yet. However, they are aggressively planning for lots and lots of regular updates post launch. It also kind of sounds like we'll be going further and further in the time period between the games as time progresses.
- Blizzard is aware that you're very, very mad about this game, so they probably won't be showing it again until they have more things nailed down and can give you the answers you want.
Last edited:
