Diablo Immortal hands-on: Between the Devil and the deep blue sea

Blizzard's greed apparently knows no bounds

Yesterday Diablo Immortal started rolling out to the masses even though today is the game's official release date on mobile (with the PC beta going live today too). Since the stable version has been available for over 24 hours now, and since today is release day, I've taken the opportunity to dive deep for a hands-on, to offer my early impression of the stable release, with a lengthy gameplay video included that showcases precisely how Diablo Immortal plays (this includes the in-game shop and all settings). So if you've been eager to see what the stable release of Diablo Immortal has to offer, today's hands-on is for you.

Gameplay

The above gameplay video was recorded at 1080P 60FPS. This is a recording of the freshly-released stable version of Diablo Immortal. The video is about an hour long, as this is how long it takes to unlock the majority of content. At the 3:06 minute mark, I show off all of the game's settings (including its graphical options), and at 27:05 I dive into the in-game shop, with multiplayer showcased at 57:05.

You have a choice of six characters; Barbarian, Wizard, Demon Hunter, Monk, Crusader, and Necromancer. Like previous Diablo games, each character brings their own skills and playstyle (I opted to start with the Barbarian as I love to brute force my way through ARPGs).

As you enter the dark and gloomy world, you're quickly talked into saving humanity by cleaning up the corrupted fragments of the shattered Worldstone. A story interesting enough to keep people playing, but clearly nothing groundbreaking. Still, this is the driving force to hack and slash your way to victory, and hack and slash you will, in bite-sized increments. You can even turn on a pathing guide to show you exactly where to go, simplifying exploration. However, you unlock auto-navigation in the first couple of hours, where you tap a button to get where you need to go, a typical feature in mobile MMOs, so you can still let the game play itself, at least as far as traversal goes (combat is manual, thankfully).

Once you get further in the game, you'll unlock multiplayer, where you can delve into dungeons with friends and strangers, and this works well, where it's effortless to drop in and out. Plus, as you run around each map when doing the game's story content (since Diablo Immortal is an MMO), you'll see other players around the map and can even join them in their adventures. The game is very multiplayer friendly, though the PvP content will more than likely be dominated by whales, which is where the game's pay-to-win aspects will rear their ugly head.

Honestly, the core ARPG gameplay of Diablo Immortal is the title's strongest feature, thanks to a clear and familiar design. So far, the balance feels good, where things aren't too easy (you actually have to play the game to advance), and there are no signs of inappropriate difficulty spikes. That's not to say these spikes won't show up later in the game, as that remains to be seen this early after release. Still, most free-to-play games jump right into the first difficulty spike by the first boss, so it's refreshing to see that Blizzard took the care to offer gameplay that feels comparable to its previous Diablo titles.

As Blizzard has claimed, all loot can be found as a free player. You can earn everything in the game with time, though this isn't the full story since crafting and combining duplicates is required to level up weapons and gear. Much of the items necessary to do this don't drop so easily, but Blizzard will sell you what you need if you don't mind paying for it, and since there are limitations on crafting, you can also pay to remove that roadblock as well. Ultimately, Diablo Immortal is pay-to-win, by definition, so this will affect balance, but at the very least, from a casual perspective, Diablo Immortal is fun to play where the obvious annoyances utilized in similar mobile MMOs are hidden much deeper, affording players the opportunity to enjoy the game's story content.

Keep in mind that there is no cross-server play (for some strange reason, perhaps a limitation of the in-house NetEase engine), so make sure to pick your server wisely if you plan to join a group of friends, as that's where your character save will remain. Of course, there is cross-play between Android, iOS, and PC, but you'll still have to be on the same server as the people you want to play with, no matter their platform of choice.

It's also worth noting this is a large game that requires at least 2.4GB of disk space, topping out on my ROG 5 at 12.04GB once it was fully installed. This is still smaller than the PC version, a 24GB install.

Controls

When Diablo Immortal was in alpha, controller support was only a possibility, it didn't exist yet, and Blizzard was adamant that the game was designed explicitly around touch controls. Well, Blizzard saw the light and added controller support during the beta, and it's here with the official release and works wonderfully. Not only does controller support make it much easier to play on tablets and Chromebooks, but popping a Razer Kishi or GameSir X2 onto your phone is also an incredible way to play the game. It just feels right; nothing beats tactile buttons. What's crazy is that Blizzard's touch controls come pretty dang close.

You can immediately tell that touch controls were Blizzard's focus when designing Diablo Immortal. They are as smooth as butter, where you'll pull off moves by swiping directionally, and even though this might sound a little offputting, it sure works wonderfully and is incredibly intuitive. Over the years, I've played quite a few mobile games, and there aren't many that have reached the high bar Blizzard has set with the controls for Diablo Immortal.

Best of all, both the touch controls as well as controller support offers in-game mapping, and there are a ton of settings. So if you're not a fan of the defaults for either control method, you can tweak and dial in your preferences. Blizzard has done its due diligence with the controls, proving the lengthy development time resulted in player-focused features.​​​​​​​

Graphics

Much like the controls, Blizzard offers many graphical options in the game's settings. You can set your framerate at 30FPS or 60FPS, with a choice of image accuracy that ranges from Medium, High, to Ultra. Depending on the power of your phone, you can select from these three choices, but it may limit your framerate choice. You can also dig deeper to change settings for shadows, fog, post-processing, anti-aliasing, environment detail, bloom, and vegetation. Similar to a full-fledged PC game, you can pick and choose which settings are more important to you to dial in your performance.

As far as graphical performance goes, the game looks great, especially if you turn all of the settings to their highest options, though this will chew through battery, and once the phone grows hot, some stutter and dropped frames are seen. I can't say I was able to hold a stable 60FPS on the High resolution setting with a 60FPS cap (on my ROG 5), as you can see stutter when the game is loading new content or when you get close to a busy area with other players. So it would seem some more optimization is needed, though it's not like the random stutter was game-breaking. It's simply a slight annoyance. There's also some jank, here and there, as you can still see some of the roots of the NetEase in-house engine, where cutscenes end abruptly or transitions between scenes cause slight input delay.

Overall, Diablo Immortal offers incredibly polished graphics that run reasonably well, but things aren't perfect. There's still room for improvement despite the high polish.​​​​​​​

Monetization

Oh boy, this is where things fall apart. It's almost unbelievable the amount of awful junk Blizzard has shoved into this game that can be purchased with real money, and there's no excuse for it, none.​​​​​​​

Blizzard has gone out of its way to disguise its loot boxes behind gameplay through its Crests system. You can buy Crests outright, and these Crests offer modifiers for Elder Rifts (specialized zones filled with enemies that need to be killed, similar to Diablo 3's Nephalem Rifts), where you'll be rewarded random Gems, the very items used to improve your gear. So by buying Crests, you can run as many Elder Rifts as you want, earning as many Gems as you want, to then use those Gems to upgrade the performance of your gear by slotting them in, which means those that pay for these Crests are basically buying keys to lootboxes, lootboxes you have to play through to earn your random rewards. I.E., cleverly disguised gambling, which is why Blizzard didn't release the game in the Netherlands and Belgium; it would be illegal to do so.

And the Crest system is just the tip of the iceberg. There are two optional paid battle passes, the Empowered pass is $5 a season (around 35 days), and the Collector's Empowered pass for $15 (quite the jump). There's also a third optional subscription, called Boon of Plenty, and this awards even more items on top of the battle pass system. You can also buy crafting material outright, as well as two types of currency, plus there are also cosmetics. No matter how you slice it, Blizzard has monetized Diablo Immortal to the hilt, and it's utterly disgusting, especially when you realize all of Blizzard's bluster claiming everything is unlockable by playing is meaningless when the items necessary to improve equipment are gated behind certain items, items that are of course awarded in the paid battle passes, or straight-up available for purchase in the shop, allowing anyone with money to abuse the system. In the end, actions always speak louder than words, and Blizzard's actions are pretty telling.

Final thoughts

As someone that's been covering mobile games for close to a decade, I'd have to say Diablo Immortal is one of the toughest games I've had to judge. On the one hand, the gameplay feels good, the graphics look great, and the controls are spot on. Diablo Immortal looks and plays like a proper entry in the series, explaining why it took Blizzard four years to take a NetEase engine and turn it into something that doesn't feel like a cheap cash grab.

But that's the thing. Diablo Immortal is a cash grab and a greedy one at that, thanks to several optional subscriptions on top of a gear leveling system that whales will easily abuse. This is ultimately a huge turn-off. Why invest time or money into a game that is built to be pay-to-win? Sure, if you don't dip into PvP content, the fact the game is pay-to-win shouldn't affect your gameplay, but this doesn't account for end-game balance, something nobody has seen yet, so there's no telling what kind of false roadblocks await everyone.

This split in design is what leaves me questioning whether or not Diablo Immortal is a good game worth recommending. Blizzard took the time to polish the title, ensuring it's fun for free and paying players alike, and there's something to be said for this, few mobile game devs are willing to spend the money to create something that looks and plays this well. So in this framing, I can say Diablo Immortal is easily a step above the competition on mobile. Then again, the excessive monetization is gross and is designed to be abused by whales. While I suppose this shouldn't affect much outside of PvP, there's always the chance that late-game balance or some random update will make things much worse for free players. But in its current state, the very thing this hands-on is all about, Diablo Immortal offers an entertaining time, so I'm going to say go ahead and check it out if you've yet to do so. After all, it is a free download, and even if it isn't the best Android game out there, there's no actual harm in taking a look.