The role-playing game belonging to the hack 'n' slash genre par excellence, Diablo, will be released in the next few years (hopefully sooner!) for iOS and Android mobile devices with the name of Diablo Immortal. His announcement, as you probably remember, was not very lucky for Blizzard: in 2018 on the occasion of the BlizzCon the world was waiting for an announcement related to Diablo IV (which will then happen the following year), so Immortal "was born in a bad light", in our opinion undeservedly. Well, Wyatt Cheng Blizzard is back to talk about the first chapter in the mobile version of the entire saga (the video awaits you at the bottom of the news). Among the many aspects analyzed by the Software House, we want to focus on interpretation that Blizzard has given to the concept of free-to-play.
Diablo Immortal, when launched on the Google Play Store and App Store, will debut in free-to-play mode. It will therefore not be necessary to pay even one euro but, as for any fpt on the market, it will present the formula of in-app purchases. Cheng then immediately clarified:
Diablo Immortal will be free-to-play with optional in-app purchases. We plan to support Diablo Immortal with regular free content, including new gear, features, classes, stories and areas to explore. Additionally, we want to make sure that every purchase is fair and guided by a set of values that emphasize each player's gaming experience.
The core mechanics are designed to be fun first and foremost, and purchases should never evade the core dynamic: slaying demons and obtaining gear! It is essential that the only way to get the equipment is to play the game. Purchases shouldn't detract from the gaming experience.
Finally, purchases should be an absolutely optional extra to fully enjoy the game. The gameplay experience at the heart of Diablo Immortal will always be free, and players should enjoy the game for hours on end whether they decide to spend money or not.
Examples are therefore given of what it will be possible to buy with real money and what not: in Diablo Immortal there will be a new type of Gates, the Ancient Gates, which can be accessed using Emblems, which will change the difficulty and quality of the rewards obtainable upon completing the Ancient Rift itself. Well, it will also be possible to get the Emblems by buying them with real money, but they they will not favor the retrieval of equipment items, which will instead be available to all players, even to those who decide not to spend a single euro inside Diablo Immortal. A second example is related to the use of Stones of the Reforging: as it is easy to guess from their name, these items will be used to reforg any type of equipment or weapon possessed. The Stones will be obtained simply by playing, or can be purchased with real money to speed up the process of collecting the Stones themselves. No gameplay advantage, only one way to speed up the times a bit relating to obtaining Emblems and Reforging Stones.
We therefore leave you to the words of Wyatt Cheng, underlining that - unfortunately - Blizzard has not yet expressed itself on a launch window related to Diablo Immortal. Fortunately, however, something starts to move, and one technical demo in Alpha version will be available soon in Australia, for players who first pre-registered to the game on the Android or iOS store pages. Before leaving you at the video below, we also remind you that Blizzard at the end of September unveiled some interesting ones details related to the Diablo IV skill tree.
