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Diablo Immortal interview: Blizzard 'investigating' gamepad support

Lead Game Producer Caleb Arseneaux and Senior System Designer Kris Zierhut talk more about Diablo Immortal touching on, among other topics, the possibility of controller support for the mobile title.

Ozzie Mejia

March 10, 2021 4:00 PM

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Even with two other Diablo games coming down the pipe, Blizzard remains committed to its work on Diablo Immortal. The publisher has grand aspirations to make the mobile take on its long-running action RPG franchise into an authentic Diablo experience. But how far are they willing to go to make that happen? Shacknews recently pitched questions from our community to Lead Game Producer Caleb Arseneaux and Senior System Designer Kris Zierhut to learn more.

"We do get this question quite a lot, as you can imagine," Arseneaux told Shacknews in regards to the question of gamepad support. "It's something that we heard loud and clear from the tech alpha and it's something we're investigating right now. And I say 'investigating' not to be just vague in a PR setting, but because honestly our focus has been touch controls and making sure that felt really good. We hadn't put any effort into also making sure gamepad support was there. And so there's design and usability and accessibility things that we need to consider as we look at game controller support, but we definitely know that it's a popular request."

Arseneaux and Zierhut expand on some of the topics touched on in our previous interview. They also go into the topic of microtransactions and their role in the game, the Battle Pass layouts, the ways in which it's possible to get a fulfilling Diablo experience without spending money, post-launch support, and Diablo Immortal's ultimate place in Blizzard's pantheon of games. And of course, we had to ask about the potential of a cow level.

"If there were a cow level, I couldn't tell you about it," Zierhut concluded. "And if there were, I wouldn't tell you about it."

Diablo Immortal is coming soon to iOS and Android. More information on future playable alphas and betas are coming soon, so keep it on Shacknews for the latest. And for more interviews like this, be sure to subscribe to Shacknews and GamerHub.TV on YouTube.

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?