Blizzard postpones ‘Diablo Immortal’ to 2022
Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming mobile action role-playing game Diablo Immortal has been delayed until next year.
Diablo Immortal, the highly-anticipated free-to-play RPG based on the quintessential hack-and-slash series, was supposed to come out on mobile devices this year along with Diablo II: Resurrected—the remastered version of the iconic PC game Diablo II.
However, it appears that fans will have to wait a little longer after Blizzard revealed that the team behind the mobile game has been "tuning core and endgame features" based on player feedbacks they received during the closed alpha.
In a blog post, the company confirmed that Diablo Immortal is now being eyed to be released in the first half of 2022 in order to give developers enough time to polish the game. According to Blizzard, some of these improvements include optimizing Player vs Player content such as the Cycle of Strife and Battleground system.
“There's a lot of promise with the Battleground system, but we believe more can be done to make this experience more enjoyable. We'll evaluate matchmaking, earning rankings, class balance, time to kill, and other defining elements to improve the Battleground in Diablo Immortal,” it said.
As for Player vs Environment, Blizzard said that they will add new PvE-centric Raids in the Helliquary system, where bosses are now designed as a challenge for raids of eight players to overcome.
In addition to this, Blizzard said that the game’s Bounties system will also be adjusted to make it more “engaging and fruitful” for players while Challenge Rifts will now reward new upgrade materials “that can't be obtained any other way.”
Aside from that, another improvement Blizzard is working on is the game's controller support. The company said that they are still "working through the challenges of adapting the touch screen controls to a controller seamlessly."
In the gear department, Blizzard said that they are also "evaluating more ways to make top tier and legendary gear exciting and sought after, especially for players who’ve surpassed max level on their character(s). After hitting level cap, Paragon levels increase your character’s power."
"In Diablo Immortal, we want this end-game progression to be worthwhile, offering unique bonuses in the form of stat boosts and special perks. However, having a higher Paragon should also reap better rewards. We are implementing a system that enable players with higher Paragon levels or players taking on higher difficulties to receive more powerful items," it said.
Additionally, Blizzard is also making some improvements in terms of XP. Some of these include bonus XP gain for players who play less and replacing the weekly XP cap with a global cap that increases over time.
"These changes and additional opportunities to improve our gameplay experience will not be realized in the 2021 timeframe we had previously communicated. So, the game is now planned for release in the first half of 2022, which will allow us to add substantial improvements to the whole game," Blizzard added.
(Images from Blizzard)