Hours after Diablo: Immortal was announced at BlizzCon 2018, fans noticed the game bears strong resemblance to Crusaders of Light, another mobile action RPG made by NetEase.
Diablo: Immortal, for iOS and Android devices, is being made by NetEase, a Chinese company licensed to operate several Blizzard games in that country. NetEase also made Crusaders of Light, a mobile game that launched in the summer of 2017. Diablo: Immortal bears so much resemblance to Crusaders of Light that many fans are calling the new game a reskin.
In a thread posed on Reddit about two hours after the game was announced, this video (a review from MMOs.com) is used to suggest Diablo: Immortal is a reconditioned version of Crusaders of Light. In particular, Crusaders’ user interface bears strong resemblance to Diablo: Immortal ’s.
Polygon has played Diablo: Immortal at BlizzCon 2018 and will have impressions coming soon. But the user interface comparison, at least, is correct.
Crusaders of Light is also available on PC ( via Steam) where user reception has been mixed. It’s a free-to-play game where microtransactions can improve character stats, and currency can be purchased and then used in an auction house, among other things. Diablo: Immortal ’s monetization structure hasn’t been confirmed.
Crusaders of Light currently has five playable classes; Diablo: Immortal is showing three at BlizzCon 2018 (Barbarian, Wizard and Monk) with six for the full game announced (Necromancer, Demon Hunter, and Crusader are the others).
Obviously, the art styles are different, and in the announcement opening BlizzCon 2018’s keynote today, designer Wyatt Cheng touted the game’s setting between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 as an opportunity to expand the Diablo canon.
The comparisons to Crusaders of Light may also be part of an overall reaction from the core community that can charitably be described as “disappointed.” In mid-October, Blizzard sought to tamp down expectations for a major Diablo announcement, shortly after fans noticed a much bigger presence in this year’s BlizzCon schedule than it had in 2017.
But in the “Diablo: What’s Next” panel, Blizzard still got arch comments like this:
My god, the savagery. The absolute savagery. #diabloimmortal #Diablo #diablo @LaymenGaming pic.twitter.com/Jvt4XzswzS
Threads at Reddit and ResetEra largely carry the same tone, with the ties to NetEase being called out by some. “[I]t’s going to be F2P with the game constantly [trying] get some money out of you,” said one user on ResetEra . “I’m sure the core game play is good but everything else is going to be terrible.”
Polygon is at BlizzCon 2018 and will be talking with Blizzard more about Diablo: Immortal this weekend.
