After spending the last three years insisting that Diablo Immortal would be a mobile exclusive, Blizzard revealed last month that it was lying from the start. The next entry in the hellish action RPG series is coming to PC, launching on both platforms next month.
This is exactly what the fans wanted. Skeptics initially balked at Diablo Immortal's mobile exclusivity, but many have been convinced now that they know they can take on the demons of Sanctuary using just a mouse and keyboard. Others worried that the game was little more than a stripped-down Diablo clone made for the mobile market, but now they're excited to play the first original Diablo release in five years.
The announcement of the PC port of Diablo Immortal certainly did wonders for the game's image, but it's a good thing it started out as a mobile exclusive. As game director Wyatt Cheng tells TechRadar, by designing the mobile game, the team was able to explore new design principles and experiment with new gameplay concepts that were beyond the scope of previous Diablo titles.
slippery moves
“Senior Combat Designer Julian Love and I worked together on Diablo 3, and again in Diablo 3, we really wanted to have affixes play around with your movement a bit,” Cheng says.
"There was a monster affix that we wanted to do at the time but didn't, which was Icy Ground, the idea that you're skating."
It's a simple concept and one that you may not find particularly difficult to implement. Platform games like Mario, Kirby and Rayman have had players sliding on slippery surfaces for decades, but Cheng says Diablo's traditional indirect control scheme has made it difficult to implement the feature.
"Diablo Immortal is probably the most ambitious Diablo game"
Rod FergussonWith players controlling their character's movements by pointing and clicking on the map, the game's auto-routing takes over to compensate for the icy ground below them. Directing your character across a frozen lake and watching the game automatically deal with the slippery surface isn't nearly as engaging as directly controlling their movement and making their way across the tundra.
"But with Diablo Immortal," Cheng says, "we thought, 'Hey, we know we're a mobile first game, we're going to have most people Direct Control; let's go ahead and add the Icy Ground property. And now it really feels as if you were sliding on a slippery surface.
fluid combat
Designing for mobile also allowed the team to play around with other game mechanics, allowing them to use the touch interface of a phone screen to explore new combat features that weren't supported by the games' mouse and keyboard setup. Diablo's previous
“We have what I call reload abilities,” says Cheng. “Arcane Wind for the Wizard is a great example. You press the Arcane Wind button, and when your thumb holds that button, it starts to recharge. The longer you hold down the key, the more damage increases and the area of effect increases. But you can also aim while charging. And through it all, you can move your character around to really line up that perfect shot.
“It's something we couldn't do with just a mouse, so it was an opportunity we wanted to take advantage of. That's also why we added WASD keyboard control for people who wanted to be able to do that.
Designing for mobile devices allowed the team to play with new game mechanics.
Diablo Immortal will be the first game in the series to support a WASD-based control scheme, allowing you to move your character around the map with your left hand, while freeing up your right hand for more complex combat maneuvers. This means that fights will no longer be prolonged static fights. You'll be able to aim your weapons, charge spells, and unleash every hit as you circle your enemies to find the best position possible.
It's a big change for the series. While Diablo 3 on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch allowed for this kind of direct control by linking your character's movement to the analog stick, a WASD-based control scheme was never implemented for the PC version of the game. , like Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3, have been slow to move away from the traditional point-and-click control scheme that has characterized the genre for decades.
equal platforms
But while creating a mobile Diablo game gave the team some room to experiment, it also presented some challenges. Inventory management, for example, is difficult to implement when players can't hover over items to reveal their descriptions and stats. Whether you're playing Diablo Immortal on mobile or PC, you'll need to tap on items to see their descriptions.
"And that immediately 'Oh, it's a game that was made for the mobile client first,'" Cheng says. "But the advantage is that the game is identical. When you come and go, we have complete feature parity. No hidden features available on any platform. »
Fights will no longer be prolonged static fights
This feature parity is part of Blizzard's attempt to present Diablo Immortal as a full-fledged action RPG that can stand alongside its PC brethren. As Diablo franchise general manager Rod Fergusson says, the team's primary goal in creating Diablo Immortal was to bring a triple-A experience to mobile devices; to create a mobile game that would not only rival previous releases in the series, but continue to surpass them.
"Diablo Immortal is probably the most ambitious Diablo game we've made to date," says Fergusson. “And that's something that really excites us. Part of the free nature of the game is support for the game beyond launch, and we're looking at new areas, new dungeons, even new classes. All of these will be available for free as we will continue to support Diablo for years to come.