Now that I've spent more than enough time in Diablo Immortal to find a purpose in it and also render an opinion on it, I wanted to share some thoughts on how others can join in on a similar journey and get to the fun stuff in the game a little faster.
When I started playing the game, I was flying completely blind and found myself getting bored mostly because I wasn't advancing as quickly as I wanted to and was unclear on how to even figure out what I was supposed to do or what I was even chasing. With that in mind, I've laid out a progression guide here that is focused on helping other hapless players find their way a little easier.
I've put quite a few hours into Diablo Immortal's story and other side quests so far and haven't really felt a hint of need explore any of its monetized aspects. In theory, this is good news, as everyone's speculation heading into the game's release would be that it would be some horribly monetized bastardization of Diablo (which it is obviously not). In practice, though, I'm having a hard time mustering much enthusiasm or curiousity about just about anything Diablo Immortal has to offer, regardless of quality.
The whole gaming community is waiting for Diablo Immortal, which is set to release in June this year. RPG fanatics will finally have a chance to enjoy the Diablo universe on their Android and iOS devices. The PC open beta will also launch on the same day after four years of development.
Instead, I’ll try to predict some of 2019’s worst trends as they pertain to mobile and tell you why I’m not looking forward to hearing about them, and why you shouldn’t either.
Apple Editorial continuing to be a thing
Editorial content for mobile is great and—in my (biased) opinion—pretty necessary. The App Store isn’t quite as wild as the Android market, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t imitations, clones, and straight up awful garbage coming out on the store every day. This is probably why Apple’s new editorial games content exists on the App Store now, but just because it exists doesn’t mean it’s good.
In fact, my entire experience engaging with Apple’s written content around gaming has convinced me that it’s pretty rotten. Picks of new games seem to hinge on whether they can sell more copies of it because of some sort of name recognition or impressive screenshot, and they cover up their weak/questionable picks by burying them in lists of mobile titles other mobile outlets have already scrounged up and identified as great games from before Apple Editorial was a thing. It’s almost like they have no actual integrity and are just trying to get people to buy more games. It’s almost like whoever is writing for that team has a vested interest in people buying games.
All of this was true in 2018, but I super don’t look forward to seeing it continue to grow in 2019.
It's a really interesting question, and one that as players of mobile games, we need to ask ourselves from time to time - why does everyone hate us? It's something we've seen more of in recent years as traditionally AAA developers and publishers have started to realise that mobile gaming is actually a goldmine. The most recent, and one of the most vehement, backlashes has been against Blizzard after it announced Diablo Immortal.
But why does this keep happening? What is it about a game making the leap from PC and console to mobile that makes so many people feel the need to rage into the abyss of the internet? Is it a reflection of something underlying so-called gaming culture, or a problem that's inherent in every walk of life?
These are the questions that we're going to try and answer in this article. If you've got your own theories as to why this keeps happening, then do please let us know in the comments section at the bottom of the article. Before that though, let's get our grey matter working.
I watched the full trailer for Diablo: Immortal, and I’ve got to say: This reaction is kind of confusing. The game looks… fine? I don’t know. There’s just not a whole lot of information about the game in general, and definitely not enough to feel like I could have strong feelings about it at all, whether they be positive or negative.
With that in mind, I decided to try and investigate all the reasons why people are so down on Diablo: Immortal, and I can’t really find one that makes sense. Below are the reasons I see most often cited for all this Diablo: Immortal hate, along with some thoughts on why these just feel like excuses to get mad about something online.
You might not have heard, but over the weekend at BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard revealed that its classic dungeon-crawling franchise Diablo is set to hit mobile sometime in the not-too-distant future. That's a pretty big reveal, and as you might be able to imagine a lot of people have a lot of opinions about the game coming to iPhone.
There's a lot of information flying about, as you'd expect, so we thought it was important to make sure you had all the facts in one handy place. Thus, we have created this list of the top 6 most important things you need to know about Diablo Immortal.