The campaign is long, luxurious, and largely free of grind. There is no energy-style mechanic restricting the amount of time you can play without paying, and none of its activities reside behind any kind of paywall. It is also more generous and open in its design than many of its free-to-play peers. At first, Diablo Immortal is as fun to play as it sounds: a lightweight, portable, social, and quick-fire version of Diablo 3.

You wouldn’t know it when you start playing the game. Neither group is wrong, so should we just chalk this up to different strokes and move on? Unfortunately not, because Diablo Immortal isn’t just at the center of a video game culture war. Existing Diablo fans hate the way their favorite game has been monetized in its new free-to-play incarnation, while mobile game players, who are more accustomed to this business model, are impressed with the polish, depth, and scope that Immortal has inherited from its predecessors. It’s because Immortal is the same game in a new context that the opinions of different constituencies of its audience can vary so widely. Immortal’s artwork has the same richly colored, golden glow, the combat is the same intoxicating firework display, and the clang and splatter of the sound effects offer the same deep, Pavlovian satisfaction. Beyond that, Immortal has clearly been built on the Diablo 3 engine and uses that game’s assets, retaining the feel and atmosphere of Blizzard’s 2012 game. The series’ trademark isometric perspective, frantic combat with swarms of monsters, and fountains of loot are all present. On the other hand, for any Diablo player - particularly any Diablo 3 player - Diablo Immortal will feel comfortingly familiar. These are all huge sea changes for Diablo. It is co-developed with a Chinese company, NetEase, and, more than any Blizzard game before it, it has been made with an eye on Asian markets. It’s a massively multiplayer online game with a shared world, where you see other players running around. Several new contexts, actually: It’s designed primarily for mobile devices with touchscreen controls. In their way, both these ratings are right.ĭiablo Immortal is not just a new entry in Blizzard’s storied action role-playing game series, it frames Diablo in a new context. “Finally, a mobile game done right!” comments one user.

On Apple’s App Store, however, Diablo Immortal has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. “Disgustingly designed,” reads one typical comment. A month after it launched, Diablo Immortal has among the lowest Metacritic user review scores of all time: 0.4 on iOS and 0.3 on PC.

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