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Diablo Immortal is an upcoming mobile video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment, to be published by Activision Blizzard for mobile platforms unveiled at BlizzCon 2018. Diablo Immortal covers the stories and character journeys between the events of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction and Diablo III. There are no plans from Blizzard Entertainment to release this video game on PC or console platforms.
Content
In order to develop this video game, Blizzard partnered with NetEase, and it appears that Diablo Immortal is either a graphical reskin, or a very minor rework, of some of NetEases's other titles, such as Endless of God, which heavily featured microtransactions and play-to-win functionality.
Reception
The game was received poorly by BlizzCon attendees, and for the first time since BlizzCon began, the stage was booed by the audience. One member of the audience asked "Is this a late April Fools joke?", to which the audience cheered. When the stage clarified that there were no plans to release this on PC or console platforms, boos rained from the audience. The stage's response to this was "You all have mobiles, don't you?". This exchange was later cut from the official archive footage of the "Diablo: What's Next" panel that the Q&A featured in. There have also been reports that Blizzard has been removing comments from YouTube videos (which at one point made users post a removed comment from a user called RedPillShark as part of their own comments), and pulling footage from Twitch users that featured the Q&A exchange. While Blizzard has uploaded more than one copy of the cinematic to YouTube (to comply with licensing regulations from regulatory bodies such as the ESRB and PEGI), they have all, at time of writing, been subject to heavy dislike-to-like ratios.
Some social media outlets and game industry workers that have previously been Anti-GamerGate condemned the backlash as "misogynistic", claiming that as mobile games were played primarily by women, any such criticism was due to women being the primary beneficiary of any such foray into mobile gaming. One Mashable article (of which this is just one of several that have been put out) claimed that players needed to "Grow up", Venturebeat claimed the game was "fine", but still expressed reservations that Blizzard has not indicated how the game will be monetized. Forbes also claimed that users need to calm down, with the writer, Paul Tassi, missing the point completely over why fans are outraged.
Fans of the Diablo franchise were unhappy with the Diablo Immmortal announcement for a number of reasons; the core playerbase is keen to see a Diablo II remaster, as many fans regard this video game and its mechanics as being the peak of the series. Many fans were also unhappy with the launch of Diablo II, and while the general consensus is that the Reaper of Souls update to the game has made it greatly more enjoyable, some fans believe that a new entry to the series with many of the lessons learned would be more productive. Mobile video games that use high-profile IPs are also widely seen as exploitative and a cheap way for a company to secure revenue at the expense of development time (which has already been demonstrated by companies such as Electronic Arts [[[Dungeon Keeper (series)|Dungeon Keeper]] and Command & Conquer series'] and [[Square Enix [such as with Final Fantasy XV's spin-off titles]), and Diablo fans fear that this marks a turning point for their beloved franchise in much the same way.
Sensing an opportunity to grow their playerbase, the Path of Exile subreddit hosted a "Welcome" thread for existing Diablo players seeking an alternative video game to the Diablo franchise that offers similar gameplay.
