Diablo Immortal hands-on preview from BlizzCon 2018: Loot on the go

Blizzard took BlizzCon goers by surprise with the conclusion to Friday's Opening Ceremonies. The Diablo announcement for the year had nothing to do with Diablo III this time around, but it also had nothing to do with Diablo IV, either. No, this announcement was for an entirely new entry to the series, one built for mobile devices.

Fans met the announcement of Diablo Immortal with confusion. Some met the announcement with anger and rage. But once the initial reactions were out of the way, the question was, did it actually play like Diablo? Shacknews jumped on a demo station at this year's BlizzCon to give the first mobile Diablo a try.

After selecting between the Barbarian, Monk, and Wizard. the settings look noticeably familiar. The demo starts inside a gothic cathedral within the realm of Sanctuary, where Deckard Cain offers players a quick tutorial. There's a virtual analog stick along the bottom-left corner of the screen, while the player's abilities were laid out along the bottom-right corner.

After getting the gist of the Diablo formula and bashing a few skeletons, it was time to venture out into a different area, one where I ran into other Diablo Immortal players. This is the city of Westmarch, which acted as more of a central hub area, as I wandered the vast world in search of the demo's primary dungeon. Upon finding it, a prompt popped up asking to either go the dungeon solo or party up with other players.

From here, the Diablo experience only continued to feel more familiar. Enemies would spawn in, sometimes from the depths of the underworld and other times hatching from demonic spawns. They'd attack in crazy numbers, requiring quick heals and area-of-effect abilities to keep them under control. There was no mana cost for these abilities, though they did come with cooldown timers.

The dungeon boss was certainly a reminder of how cruel Diablo could be. The boss struck hard and struck often, bringing up minions to get the numbers advantage and striking forward with his giant weapon. I died a handful of times here, but was able to resurrect at my corpse for seemingly no penalty. Whether this will change in the final version of the game remains to be seen.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Diablo experience without loot and there was plenty of loot to be found. There were chests that housed pickups, but most of the loot I found came from fallen enemies. Loot could be picked up with a simple touch and equipped on the spot, though any stat changes were only indiated after the items were equipped.

Diablo Immortal certainly feels like a Diablo experience. The dungeon crawling elements, the abilities, the classes, the endless loot, the barrage of powerful enemies, all of it feels like Diablo. It just happens to be on a phone and I'm not going to pretend that it's going to have a universal appeal, because that won't be the case. Depending on the touch screen for movement is going to be an acquired taste, saying that as someone who frequently tried to swipe a little too far and wound up interrupting my own momentum because of it. On top of that, I noticed a few stuttering hiccups in a few instances where multiple enemies tried to spawn in. They just simply popped up in the middle of the screen out of thin air after a brief hitch. I can only imagine how much those problems would be exacerbated on lower-end or older model mobile devices. On the other end of that spectrum, Diablo Immortal does look gorgeous and gave me that sense that it'll run beautifully on higher-end devices like the Razer Phone.

At the end of the demo, I did have a few questions that were ultimately left unanswered. Beyond any penalties for dying, I was left wondering how monetization will ultimately be carried out for this game. Will it essentially have its own auction house? Also, how will multiplayer function in a real world setting, where people are using different phones or tablets? How far is Blizzard looking to support this game and will it have as long a shelf life as Diablo III? Can friends share or trade loot? I'd expect most of the questions to be answered fairly soon, given that Blizzard is looking to release Diablo Immortal before long.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't make a brief comment on the r/Diablo thread discussing whether Diablo Immortal is a reskin of other games from developer NetEase. Given that NetEase has been in the business of making Diablo clones in the past, I can't complain too much about them using their talents to make an actual Diablo. As long as it's fun to play, which this definitely was. Again, I'm not sure how much the purists will care for the touch controls, but for those who can get past that, this looks to be on its way towards being a solid entry in the series. It might even turn out to be the Diablo nobody knew they wanted.

Diablo Immortal is coming soon to iOS and Android. Pre-register on the Diablo Immortal website.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?