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General News - Diablo Immortal Review

by Hiddenx, 2022-06-06 08:50:14

But Why Tho checked out Diablo Immortal:

REVIEW: 'Diablo Immortal' Is Good, to a Point (PC)

The announcement of Diablo Immortal is a moment in the games industry that will live in infamy. Seen by many as a tone-deaf move by series developer Blizzard Entertainment, the heavily memed “don’t you guys have phones?” moment put Diablo Immortal in a more complicated position than any AAA franchise moving into the mobile space would normally be. But now that the NetEase Games developed and Blizzard published title is out, how does it actually stack?

For my time with the game, I only played the PC port, so I cannot comment on how the game runs on mobile phones. Unfortunately, PC ports of mobile games don’t have the best track record, and Diablo Immortal is no different. The settings are terribly barebones, the UI is garishly large, and the hitbox for selecting items and interacting with points of interest is tiny. The control prompts are also nearly unchanged for the PC port, like clicking is almost always called tapping to fit a phone’s touch screen. 

[...]

The worst part about this system is that there is no free alternative. As of the time of writing, Legendary Crests cannot be earned by grinding for a free currency or saving up a trickle of premium currency that the game gives you for free, as is an option in games like Genshin Impact. Instead, the only way to get them is through microtransactions, with some outlets, like Forbes, reporting that endgame builds are expected to cost players anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000.

[...]

TL;DR

For most of my time with Diablo Immortal, I was pleasantly surprised. But when I reached the endgame content it became clear that all of that was to trap me in an exploitative revenue scheme. I would have been more than willing to buy a battle pass here and there or even some cosmetics or expansions to support Diablo Immortal into the future, but its bold and scummy approach to manipulating vulnerable players not only soured my entire experience with the game but marks a dangerous cornerstone in the monetization of similar products in the future. 

Score: 5/10

 

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RPG General News

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Genre: RPG
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Release: In development


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