A Return to Sanctuary: Checking in with the developers of Diablo Immortal

As far as first impressions are concerned, it's safe to say that Diablo Immortal didn't really score well when it was unveiled at BlizzCon 2018. Despite official clarification from Blizzard staff that the Diablo reveal wasn't regarding Diablo IV, fans refused to believe them and were subsequently (and obviously) disappointed when the team showed off Diablo Immortal instead. 

However, that fiasco is one you can catch up on another day. Despite the overwhelmingly negative reception at the start, the game is actually pretty good, and earlier this week, we sat down with two members of the development team, namely Lead Producer Caleb Arsenaux and Lead Game Designer Wyatt Cheng to check out the latest updates.

But that wasn't all they showed off. Apart from a short presentation showcasing the game's narrative setting and brand-new gameplay mechanics, the developers also surprised attendees by announcing a technical alpha test for the game!

What's up in the world of Sanctuary?

Anyway, let's get back to business. To refresh everyone's memory, like its predecessors on PC and console, Diablo Immortal is a dungeon crawler RPG. The action takes place in the same world of Sanctuary, and its narrative is set in the two-decade interim period between Diablo II and Diablo III. Of course, this means that there will be characters (and enemies!) from the previous games making an appearance in Immortal, such as Deckard Cain, Zoltun Kulle, and even The Countess. 

The plot is pretty straightforward - at the end of Diablo II, we see the Archangel Tyrael shatter the Worldstone into several fragments, which are then scattered across the land. However, evil never rests - Skarn, the Herald of Terror seeks to bring back his demonic lord by gathering the various fragments of the crystal, and of course, the world needs a bunch of brave adventurers to stop him. Yup, that's about it. 

What else is new?

The gameplay presentation is where the real meat on this cow is, but let's just glance over the main player-related bits for now - we'll do up a proper in-depth explanation when we can. From a tweaked Paragon system and secondary market, to wholly new mechanics like the Item Rankings and the "Ultimate Meter" as the developers refer to it, there still a lot of ground to cover, but we've summarised them as best we can for your convenience.

First up on the menu is the Paragon system. The post-max-level enhancement concept from D3 has remained the same in Immortal, except that the buffs have now been expanded and diversified into entirely different Paragon trees. There will be four of them in the techncial alpha test, with more to come when the game officially releases. Each of these trees focus on one type of playstyle, and players can distribute points among them as desired allowing for extensive customisation.

Meanwhile, the secondary market is also seeing a huge, but singular change: equipment, namely things that your character can wear and use on their avatar cannot be bought or put up for sale by other players anymore. The only items that will appear on the market in Immortal are things like Gems and possibly some consumables, which means that stuff like weapons, helms, jewellery and suchlike will only be available through a player's own hunting efforts. 

Next, Item Rankings are a new, rather interesting and yet oddly late addition to a Diablo game. Rather than having to discard or sell your lower-level equipment when they become obsolete, you can opt to salvage them at a Blacksmith to acquire crafting materials. These resources can then be used to power up your favourite pieces of equipment to a higher rank. Additionally, every few ranks awards the item a brand-new effect or modifier, meaning your trusty blade or mace can stick around with you throughout your entire adventure.

Then there's the Ultimate Meter, which supposedly works like most Ultimate Move Gauges do in other titles. By killing enemies, players can charge up their Ultimate meter in Diablo Immortal, and when it's full, they can unleash devastating attacks on their enemies. We're not yet sure if this is entirely separate from the existing "Ultimate" moves we're used to seeing in Diablo III, but we'll check it out during the technical alpha and get back to you on it. 

Finally, before we hit the Q&A section, here's what we know about how in-app purchases will work in Diablo Immortal. The first and probably the most important bit is that cashing won't allow you to get better gear directly - gear is only available from drops, which means the whales and dolphins will still have to put in the work for them like everyone else.

However, Blizzard does want you to feel like you're investing in something that's worth money, and there are currently three types of items you can get off the paid shop. Specifically, these include Crests and Specialised Reforge Stones which you can use to add additional conditions to your Rift runs and narrow down the pool of gear enhancement effects respectively.

There's also a monthly Battle Pass, which players can purchase to snag additional rewards for completing milestones and other miscellaneous objectives. All in all, it's pretty well thought out, as it really narrows the divide between F2Ps and the whaling crowd we usually see in other mobile games. 

Does anyone have any questions?

Of course.

After bashing through all of that information, it's only natural that everyone would. Accordingly, we put forth some of these queries to the developers, and they were more than happy to clarify what they could. 

Given that the technical alpha is fundamentally an incomplete test copy of the game, there will only be four out of the six playable classes available during the test period. However, we pointed out that even among the full six, the Witch Doctor class from D3 was noticeably absent, to which the developers replied that this choice was made to avoid overlapping characteristics between the current roster of melee and ranged classes. 

You see, rather than being a DLC character like it originally was in D3, the Necromancer class will apparently be available in Immortal as one of the launch classes. However, Cheng did assure us that this pool would definitely increase with time as the team is committed to constantly providing and creating new content for the game in future. Needless to say, "new content" includes new character classes as well, though it's a bummer they can't provide any specifics at this point in time. 

Moving on, we then asked about how the team accounted for player feedback regarding the constant need to farm for new and stronger Legendaries to keep up with the content. As a RPG, the concept of grinding is one deeply rooted in Diablo as a franchise, and the thrill of acquiring a piece of great equipment after putting in the effort is supposedly part of the fun.

Going by that train of thought, Cheng mentioned that although the team was aware of player feedback regarding this aspect, the team believed that such experiences are still a fundamental and irreplaceable part of the Diablo experience. He did note that the addition of the Item Ranking system might mitigate the need to some extent, since you can opt to rank up your favourite pieces of equipment rather than having to constantly respec for a new, but higher-levelled Legendary.

Our next question asked about the integrity of the game experience on older devices, as well as some of the backend practices that the team used to keep the user experiences smooth. Arsenaux stepped in to answer this one, saying that while the team was of course dedicated to providing the best experience possible for all players, they weren't exactly able to share details on the backend work they put in. He did note, though that the team did keep the installation packages small to facilitate smooth downloads, which is always good to have. 

Finally, we put forth a question about the narrative - why did the developers select the interim period between D2 and D3 as the chronological premise for Immortal? Given that D4 is already in the works, you'd think they would use the opportunity to make this game a prelude for it and amp up the hype, right?

Apparently, that's not the case. Their answer was a pretty simple one: they slotted Immortal into this time period simply because it was worth exploring and elaborating on. Apparently, D2 doesn't immediately jump to D3 after a few months or even a year - the interim period actually lasts a whopping twenty years, and this gap in the story has never really been utilised or explored properly. Accordingly, the team felt that it was worth slotting in something to fill in the gap, and that "stopgap narrative", so to speak turned out to be Diablo Immortal - I can work with that explanation.

Happy holidays?

Anyway, that marks the end of our little developer Q&A. Once again, we'd like to thank the developers for their time and an informative session. The only bummer is that not everyone will get to take the technical alpha for a spin - the team has mentioned they'll only be opening it to select players in Australia as well as some of the media attendees from the interview session. 

At this point, there's just one last burning question we need to ask, and it's probably the most important one of all...will there be a hidden cow level?

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.