Diablo Immortal just finished a technical alpha, and it’s shaping up to be a mobile MMO with 4-player dungeon runs, voice chat, player-driven economies, and more.
At BlizzCon 2021, we’ve learned more about Diablo Immortal, Blizzard’s mobile entry in the iconic action RPG franchise. After a technical alpha that ended in January, we’ve got a clearer view of how the game’s shaping up – and by the developers’ own accounts, Diablo Immortal is a mobile MMO with tone and gameplay in line with the franchise but could have a few tricks all its own. Important things out of the way first: there’s no release date yet, and it looks like the next phase will be another alpha, according to a Q&A with press held during BlizzConline 2021. Blizzard isn’t announcing when that next alpha will take place (though we did get more info on what’s coming – more on that later). But based on answers given by Diablo Immortal lead designer Wyatt Chang and combat designer Julian Love, we know more about how the game has been built to be an MMO on mobile, but also what tweaks to the Diablo formula have been made to make it mobile-friendly while still feeling like a game in the franchise. Here’s the top insights we gained from the Q&A: The big revelation seems to be that the Diablo Immortal team has been designing the game to be a mobile MMO – or at least be an action RPG with MMO elements like voice chat, public events, and dedicated dungeons to take on with your friends. We weren’t able to get all the specifics in the short Q&A, but we did learn that the technical alpha did implement the four-person dungeons we’d heard about before. The Diablo Immortal team affirmed that they would also like to have events with more than four players, which could be larger raid-like events in the game – though these are still aspirational, and the game could launch without these events. But the technical alpha did have extensive voice chat – not just in your party, but in public channels, too. To address the public, you can leave voice memos: hold down a dedicated ‘record’ button to save a message and a speech-to-text tool will translate and show other players a summary of your missive, which they can click on to hear your audio. This functionality is in the technical alpha that just wrapped up. The team is also working to implement guilds into the game: “we want you to feel like your membership and participation in a guild matters,” Chang said. Players will operate out of the hub city of Westmarch, and may pass “dozens” of players as they wander around. But more crucial to the MMO experience is “that the world exists outside of you,” as Chang put it, and much like World of Warcraft, the Diablo Immortal world is a persistent place that marches on with or without you. Since the game was announced at Blizzcon 2018, players have been mystified how the mobile game will recreate the Diablo experience – or diverge from it.
