Pocket Gamer speaks: Will Diablo Immortal be worth playing?
Let's talk about it
Well, Diablo is coming to mobile. That's pretty awesome, right? Well, certain corners of the internet disagree. They think that Diablo Immortal is going to ruin Diablo, and their reaction has seen Blizzard's stock drop. Like, literally.
So we thought we'd all get together and have a think about whether Diablo Immortal is actually going to be worth playing. Some of the team might have taken the question a little more seriously, but you're going to have to guess which is which.
Obviously if you've got your own thoughts to share on the subject, feel free to let us know in the comments section at the bottom of the article. And click here to check out the last Pocket Gamer Speaks feature.
Ric Cowley - Lucifer
Alright I know I'll piss off a few people with this, but what do you ultimately do in Diablo? Kill a bunch of monsters and gather loot. Equip loot and sell bits you don't need. Head back out for more monster killing and loot gathering. Sounds like basically every action-RPG mobile game already on the market, eh?
Don't get me wrong, I know that Diablo kicked off the whole genre. But the average person doesn't have hours upon hours to spend grinding for loot and repeatedly tapping the attack button to do so. But Diablo Immortal will almost certainly have autoplay. Sweet autoplay, which grants you that steady dopamine drip from gathering shiny new items without any of the work.
Throw that wonderful warm feeling in with a game developed by Blizzard and NetEase, two studios at the top of their game, and you're going to get a fantastic game, guaranteed. Hell, it might just be better than a console or PC Diablo game. And you can be damn sure it's going to make bucketloads more money than the PC versions too.
Jon Mundy - Leviathan
It'll be worth playing, I'm sure, if you're a fan of wandering through grim fantasy environments hitting ugly things repeatedly. If you're not, it won't. Simple.
There's another type of person who will join that latter group, of course. The type of person who's already determined to hate Diablo Immortal for everything that it represents, and won't give it a fair crack no matter how good Blizzard and NetEase manage to make it.
Look, I get it. I'm no great fan of loot boxes, micro transactions, or cynical mobile spin-offs either. I also accept that Blizzard's announcement strategy with Diablo Immortal was naive at best.
But when you get down to it, there's a free-to-play mobile game at the centre of all this brouhaha. And there's a fair chance, given the track record of the franchise's custodians, that it's going to be quite fun to play. If you like that sort of thing.
Dave Aubrey - Soneillon
This is a travesty. An insult to gamers everywhere. Blizzard need to learn something about their audience ASAP. I played a Diablo game once. Can't remember which one. It was a while ago. But there was an auction house which involved real money.
The fact is, I don't want Blizzard bringing their questionable methods of monetisation onto mobile. Knowing our luck we'll be charged a premium price for Diablo Immortal, in addition to IAPs and adverts for respawns.I love loot. I love dungeon crawling. But can we trust Blizzard to bring Diablo Immortal to mobile, and not include some of the money grabbing techniques they've employed elsewhere? I just don't know.
Thank God Netease are developing Diablo Immortal: at the very least, a developer that has experience with the mobile ecosystem is taking helm of the game, for those console and PC AAA publishers just can't be trusted.
Emily Sowden - Seraphim
Will it be worth playing? Truthfully, I don't know. The core appeal and visual aspect of the game is good, sure, but when I look at it I see a lot of RPGs already out and established in the mobile market. With NetEase at its back I'm certain Diablo will be led right in terms of business, but what's the game offering a crowded genre besides the name?
I said I didn't know, but I guess I'll go back on that. Diablo Immortal WILL be worth playing if only to see if you're going to like it or not. Frankly, Blizzard would be bananas in a business sense if they didn't make the game free to play, so it should give everyone an equal chance to chime in. Whether you continue playing or not depends on your own personal preferences. If you can't stand these sorts of games, odds are you won't change your mind here.
Harry Slater - Abaddon
It's going to be great.
Or it might not be, I haven't played it. It strikes me there are more interesting things to talk about than how a game that hasn't come out yet is definitely going to destroy everything good about Diablo. It's not going to retroactively rewrite your memories of playing Diablo on PC, and if you're so furious about it coming to mobile, don't play it on mobile.
This whole thing smacks of the entitlement that surrounds certain groups in the gaming community. It's toxic, it's stupid, and it's impotent. It's the kind of 'problem' that can be answered with a single thought - not everything has to be for me.
The internet creates a vacuous echo chamber, where rage is piled on rage is piled on rage, and people are whipped into a fervour by the simple fact they now have a tool that lets that talk exclusively to those who agree with them.
Consider this a challenge then - if you can give me a single solid, logical reason why you're upset about one of the biggest franchises in gaming coming to the most popular gaming platform, post it in the comments. Do it without spelling or grammar mistakes, and without being rude to someone, and we'll say we're moving in the right direction.
