On June 2, a new game in the Diablo series, subtitled Immortal, was released on smartphones and PC (beta). I spent a couple of dozen hours in it and am ready to share my opinion about the fresh brainchild of Blizzard and the Chinese company NetEase.

Story and gameplay

Diablo Immortal is a full-fledged successor to the past parts. This is an atmospheric Action/RPG, created according to the canons of the series and now available on smartphones. Gamers still need to move around diverse locations, destroy crowds of enemies, effectively apply skills and collect tons of colorful loot. It is also a multiplayer game with clans, group dungeons, raid bosses and PvP.

Diablo Immortal is primarily a mobile game and only then a port on the PC. Therefore, it was made as spectacular and fast as possible in terms of gameplay. Each of the six classic classes (Wizard, Demon Hunter, Crusader, Necromancer, Monk, and Barbarian) had their mana removed. This means that you can use skills on cooldown, and their cooldown is quite fast. So it turns out that playing Diablo Immortal on the keyboard is reminiscent of crazy piano workouts, and on smartphones it is in no way inferior to any Wild Rift or any other mobile MOBA in terms of speed.

The plot of Diablo Immortal is located between the events of the second and third parts. The story follows the scattered pieces of the Worldstone destroyed at the end of Diablo II. Now they all need to be collected and the uncomplicated plot of the game is built on this.

The Diablo series has always prioritized gameplay over storytelling, and this new installment is no exception. But going through story missions is not boring, and sometimes even fun: sometimes unexpected puzzles, exciting cutscenes or dizzying chases are added to tasks. It does not do without spectacular battles and twisted turns of history.

And yet, the essence of the main missions is always the same – to get to a new location, talk to several important heroes, get tasks from them to collect three items and go in search. Each of the artifacts, of course, is located in some kind of dungeon and is guarded by a huge monster. The hero kills the monster, deals with his henchmen, receives valuable prizes and returns with the completed task.

pumping

Leveling up in Diablo Immortal is the same as any other game in the series. We move along the plot, complete the main missions, sometimes get distracted by side tasks, grind hordes of enemies into dust, clear dungeons and destroy bosses.

Most of the time, leveling goes smoothly and without problems, but a few levels up to level 35 and 45, the main quests end and the remaining amount of experience has to be finished off by grinding and daily tasks.

This is not my exceptional case, but the systematic calculation of the creators. During such periods, special quests “Upgrade to level thirty-five” even appear, and options are offered: you can buy a battle pass for real money and get more experience and various goodies. There is an option to complete a pack of daily quests to kill monsters. And they also advise you to go to special dungeons, where, in addition to loot, special amplification stones fall out, they are also gems, to be inserted into weapons and equipment.

At 30 levels, the built-in limiter for story quests takes very little time – from 33 to 35 I leveled up in a couple of hours and it was not a boring grind, but the daily tasks and dungeon trips mentioned above (alone and with a group). He also dressed well. But pumping from 43 to 45 level took many times more time and then boredom overcame.

The rest of the pumping nuances are familiar to all fans of online games and any part of Diablo. We raise the levels, get equipment and weapons of gold or orange color, insert the best stones into it, and also separately pump the level in each item. There is also a dismantling of unnecessary equipment, inlaid gems, pumping things, as well as portals familiar from the series. They must first be opened in order to use them later. From mobile games, they added automatic movement of the hero and quick movements to the right place through other portals created by the hero.

As you can see, there will be enough activities in Diablo Immortal for a long time, as well as various dungeons, monsters, main and side quests. On high-levels, we add to this PvP and raid trips to bosses with millions of hit points.

Belonging to mobile games also influenced the skills of the heroes, their number and methods of use. Diablo Immortal doesn’t even have a skill tree for classes. But a number of skills are available, which are slowly opening up at different levels.

There are about fifteen of them per class. Only five can be placed on the layout at the same time – one simpler on the left mouse button and four more serious on different keys. Plus, over time, the ult is activated. But, like any other superpower, its effect is extremely short-lived. Each skill also rises in level, but this does not happen by the will of the player, but automatically. Swing only those skills that are used on the layout.

The game also helps with class building. In Diablo Immortal, a build is a successful combination of just three skills. Depending on the preferences of the gamer, tips are given on creating an emphasis on PvE or PvP. I think right there you can make your own combinations of spells. But their initial small number makes the variety scarce.

There are a lot of locations in Diablo Immortal and they are diverse. Enough here dungeons and various bosses, and each has its own way of killing. To call the invented tactics too complicated, the language will not turn, but the further you go through the levels, the harder it is. And yet, you don’t have to die often – the same mobile focus is probably affecting, which means a sparing mode for gamers. And it’s frustrating. Especially fans of the series. Especially if you’ve played Diablo II Resurected recently.

Donat

The creators of Diablo Immortal have repeatedly assured that the built-in game store will not give advantages to players with money. Only cosmetic improvements and various buns will supposedly be brought into it.

Naturally, the reality is different. Firstly, if you donate to Diablo Immortal, you can speed up the leveling, which is especially true for the second, third, and all the next characters to be leveled. Secondly, each purchase in a local store is not tied to an account, but to a specific hero. Yes, this does not refute the words of the creators, but it shows their desire to earn as much money from the players as possible, even with such banal tricks. And, thirdly, experienced gamers are confused by the very gems that need to be inserted into equipment and mined in a special way.

The fact is that gems drop out in special dungeons, but in order for the chance to be 100%, you need to spend glyphs before entering them. And if at first they are given for quests and other tasks, then later they will have to be bought for in-game money – eternal spheres. And those, in turn, are purchased exclusively for hryvnia.

These gems come in different rarities – from one to five stars. Plus, each stone still needs to be pumped through the levels so that it has the maximum effect of bonuses and passive skills for the hero.

As I understood from communication with other players, this will be a serious income for the creators and big expenses for players who want to achieve the maximum in the game. Perhaps somehow it will turn out to get around this whole thing without money. Maybe there are even ways. Unfortunately, during the time that I spent so far in the game, it was not possible to figure it out. If you know more, be sure to share this information in the comments.

Interface and graphics

The interface of Diablo Immortal on PC once again confirms that the game is the first mobile. On the computer, the menu and all its elements are transferred here completely unchanged. I didn’t play on my smartphone, because I have a Samsung on an Exynos chip, and playing on them does not load textures .

Almost any pop-up window contains the words “Click” or “Tap to continue” at the bottom. The letters are huge everywhere, the icons are large and placed in a bunch. All this looks beautiful on the screen of a mobile phone and does not please the eye on the monitor.

True, people with poor eyesight are clearly happy, but the rest are not very happy. In any case, Blizzard is pointing out that the PC version hasn’t been finalized and is now just an open beta. Therefore, we hope that in a full-fledged release, the interface will be redesigned for this platform as much as possible.

The graphics are not bad, there are detailed settings and even switching the frame rate from 30fps to “No limits”. Of course, on a large monitor, picture flaws are visible, especially since there is no 4K support. But for a mobile project, the graphics are nice and detailed. And on the display of the smartphone, the picture is completely gorgeous, even if the settings are not maximum. And the style of Diablo Immortal is as close as possible to Diablo III.

Most players are satisfied with the optimization of the mobile version (they say it goes great at 30fps with low graphics settings even on budget no-names). But the PC version is sometimes lame and in rare cases drops to 30 frames per second. True, in my case this happened just a few times. Basically, on my Nvidia GeForce 1650Ti with 4 GB of VRAM, 16 GB of RAM and a 9th generation Intel processor (all this is on an Asus ROG Strix G531GT laptop), Diablo Immortal gave out 120-150fps at maximum settings.