It’s been a little over two years since Blizzard announced Diablo immortal, a mobile exclusive entry into the legendary action RPG franchise, at BlizzCon 2018 to a… less than enthusiastic audience. While that audience certainly included people who just hated the idea of playing for free Diablo for mobile (Ew! Mobile!), a lot of the animosity was also from a lot of people really Blizzard wanted to announce Diablo IV but instead they covered BlizzCon with mobile only Diablo immortal Announcement. Way to read the room Blizzard! Just kidding, I love you.
Anyway, Blizzard certainly got the message and a year later we fast-forward to BlizzCon 2019 and it was ALL about Diablo IV with an official reveal, gameplay trailers and loads of information. They have not forgotten Diablo immortal though, and while it wasn’t exactly a main focus of the show, they did release an updated gameplay trailer and blog post with tons of new details about the game, like the fact that the storyline took place in between Diablo II and Diablo III. Here’s last year’s BlizzCon trailer, in case you need a refresher.
So that brings us to today, a day in the pandemic-stricken world of 2020 when this year’s personal BlizzCon event was canceled and reborn as an online event called BlizzConline set in February. That means we haven’t had our normal annual dose of Blizzard news yet, but the team behind it Diablo immortal has big news to share as they prepare for the next big stage in development, and today announced a limited-time technical alpha test for the game.
How does it work? First, it is limited to Android and Australian players only. Basically anyone in Australia who pre-registered for the game on the Google Play Store can get an invite and it will be sent to those who registered first as long as their devices are sniffing. Sometimes it pays to be at the forefront of these things! In a blog post detailing this tech alpha, Blizzard says they expect about a few thousand people to get in for this particular testing period, which should take about two weeks.
like you do not step into the test pool, which is basically the majority of everyone, Blizzard hopes to quench your thirst with a whole host of new information on Diablo immortal. This starts with a gameplay overview blog where they provide more information about the storyline in the game, the different modes, multiplayer and more. This leads to a second blog post on Character and Progression, where they break down the character classes, leveling system, and more. Next Blizard has a blog post on Itemization detailing how all items and loot work Diablo immortal, perhaps the most important essence of the entire series.
Finally we all know that Diablo immortal will be free to play, but what exactly does that mean? Blizzard dedicates an entire blog post to breaking down their approach and their values regarding monetization system. The main points here are: There is no energy system! You can play as long as you want. Also, all of them of the equipment in the game can only be obtained by playing, nothing is sold as IAP. Like I said, loot is the essence of it Diablo so it would be pretty worthless if the best stuff was locked up behind a paywall.
One thing I’m sure everyone would love to know is a release date for Diablo immortal. Well, you won’t get one today, sorry. Blizzard is known for the high quality standard they set for their products and for their willingness to take as long as it takes to reach that high bar. That said, I’ve had the chance to play this tech alpha version of it Diablo immortal a bit (and should share more on it soon) and can say that the core of the game feels incredibly polished and complete, but given the team’s ambitions about what they’d like to do in terms of modes and content, it could still still have a long way to go.
That’s just my way of saying I just don’t know! It could be very close to being released, or it could be a LONG road. I think the best scenario would be for this tech alpha to be a final stress test for the game with the aim of releasing it during BlizzConline in February, but that’s entirely speculation on my part. Be that as it may, I think whether you were excited or disappointed Diablo immortal was originally announced, we’ll all love to have a little piece of the Diablo experience nestled in our pockets, ready for some hacking, chopping, and looting whenever and wherever we want.