Diablo Immortal is a big, richly crafted installment of Diablo. The game looks great, builds on the role-playing formula introduced in Diablo III and blends it perfectly with the hardware it was originally designed for. This provides a good balance, making players feel strong and also encouraging them to keep hunting further. However, Diablo Immortal can’t always be played with the same compulsive rhythm as previous games, given the number of barriers.
Plot and features
The story unfolds between Diablo II and III. Familiar faces appear in the process to provide some context for the events that took place by the time the stay in Tristram at the start of the last main game is noted. Deckard Cain is back, as is a new evil that threatens to use shards of the same Peace Stone to wreak havoc across the lands.
The story conversations are fully voiced, making Immortal as premium as the previous Diablo PC games. In fact, this installment is just as good as the others. It features large open spaces to explore and numerous side quests to complete as the story progresses.
There aren’t many differences from the other parts of the series. Diablo Immortal was designed for smartphones, so it’s no surprise that it works best on them too. Touch controls use the familiar digital analogue joystick on the left-hand side of the screen, while the right-hand side has a set of buttons for various abilities.
The player has one main attack, as well as four equipable skills to choose from. A fifth higher ability button appears as soon as the player accesses it. You can move and automatically attack enemies, making it even easier to focus, but it also helps to accurately target certain skills that require it.
Support and connectivity
Diablo Immortal also supports a variety of controllers that can be connected via Bluetooth. With a physical joystick, movement becomes more natural, and mapping abilities to buttons and triggers means mistakes are less likely to occur. What’s more, the right joystick can be used to target abilities, eliminating the need for a dual function with a single tap.
The game is also supported on PC, albeit under the slogan “open beta”. The PC version is disappointing, to say the least, as it lacks many basic features. Many visual settings can still be turned on and off from the mobile versions, though. Given the detail levels and maximum frame rate, the PC version can only be played at 1080p resolution.
Gameplay
Gameplay has been tweaked to accommodate the transition to mobile devices, further simplifying the Diablo III formula. Regardless of which of the five classes is chosen, Immortal will not burden mana or stamina management to use abilities. Instead, the game simply relies on recovery time to balance things out.
Each ability also has only one upgrade path, eliminating the options that Diablo III provided to alter their effects. This ends up giving much less to worry about, but also less opportunity to customise the build using only abilities.