Diablo Immortal is Exactly What I Wanted
Last February, I wrote about the absurdly long development cycle of the three current Diablo games. I didn’t know at the time that Activision Blizzard was a cesspool of nightmarish workplace behavior violations, and I can only imagine what sort of turmoil was going on inside the halls of the lauded developer while I was whining about not getting new games fast enough.
It is a testament to the talent of the team that two of the long-in-development Diablo titles from my article are now finally available. Diablo II Resurrected is one of the best modern remakes on the market, with an incredible sound mix. And as of today, you can download Diablo Immortal for free on PC, iOS, or Android, and start looting and smashing your way through a brand-new adventure.
This new game was developed in conjunction with NetEase, and when it was first announced at Blizzcon way back in 2018, it instantly became a meme for how badly it went over. Four long years later, the game is here, and the flummoxed developers in that famous clip were right — this is a fully fledged Diablo game for mobile platforms…that they then panicked about and also ported to PC.
If you’re going into the PC version hoping for the next major desktop Diablo experience, it isn’t that. It’s very much the mobile version of the game with a smart keyboard and mouse control scheme snapped onto it. It looks nice with a decent set of graphics options, but as of this writing, the PC version doesn’t seem to have any sort of resolution selection and appears to be stuck at 1080p. The UI under the controls isn’t changed that much from mobile either, with big buttons meant for touching with a finger all over the place.
Still, the core gameplay here is awesome. The combat and loot loops take everything good from Diablo III and kick it up a notch. In spite of its mobile origins, Immortal is a fast and hard-hitting action RPG. You’ll need to worry about character positioning, aim your abilities, and exploit elemental weaknesses just like you would in a “real” Diablo game.
