Can we trust Blizzard with ‘Diablo 4’ after ‘Diablo Immortal’?

Diablo 4

Snow storm

There’s a question I’ve been asked a lot over the last week and myself: given the current state of Blizzard, can we trust that Diablo 4 will actually work, given recent events?

This is something I’ve been struggling with, because while yes it’s true, I’ve liked everything I’ve seen of Diablo 4 so far, especially the new footage this week, it’s hard to trust Blizzard’s decision making that much. in recent years, and it’s hard to just… trust them as an entity now.

Where to start? Choose your option.

Despite a report today that Activision’s internal investigation concluded that higher-ups did nothing wrong with regard to ignoring harassment claims, we’ve seen plenty of deviations from Blizzard, especially where their treatment of women was terrible, often even horrible. in some cases, and have seen both those accused of harassment and those accused of not doing enough to prevent it leave the company, which even included Diablo 4 director Luis Barriga. I have serious concerns not only about the literal people who have been harmed by development, but about working conditions at Blizzard in general given this environment.

Diablo 4

Snow storm

As for the actual games that Blizzard has produced, we’ve gotten into a truly surreal situation with Overwatch 2, where apparently at the behest of Activision, all development on the original game was halted to attempt to make a numbered sequel with some PvE elements. But now, years later, those PvE elements are nowhere to be found, not even discussed, and Overwatch “2” essentially returns as a huge patch to the game, reworking kits, adding maps and characters, and restarting development. that very clearly should never have stopped. If Blizzard mishandled such a spectacular new franchise and heaped praise on the GOTY winner, can we trust they won’t spoil Diablo’s return?

And then, Devil Immortal.

This is where I feel downright cheated by Blizzard, and even if it’s not the same people on the same teams, it really has left a sour taste in my mouth. All of the early tests I played didn’t have live microtransactions, so you were experiencing the game without that aspect. Even leveling up and equipping was easier, as the endgame didn’t contain any of the arbitrary caps we’ve now seen from Immortal if you try to play for free.

immortal devil

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Now, on live launch, the full game was revealed to be pay-to-win with its gacha gem system, and I rebooted game director Wyatt Cheng a lot trying to minimize the backlash and say they kept their word that they wouldn’t sell. “gear”, meaning items that go in all 12 armor and weapon slots on your character, because they don’t consider hugely powerful legendary gems that often outperform those “gear” weapons and armor. That is false at best.

Now, while Blizzard is distancing itself from… itself, saying that Immortal will not emulate that game’s monetization, you can understand why players are going to be wary:

Even what It raises a few questions, as part of the setup in previous Diablo games was looking like a badass through legendaries and sets and the free transmog system. If they put out an Immortal and save a lot of the best looks for paid deals, that wouldn’t be great. I hope I can take your word that you can’t buy energy in Diablo 4, but I also know that it’s 2022 and the siren song of post-launch monetization is very real. And we just had a very clear example of This studio it is included this ip doing everything possible with cash shots. It’s an awkward position for Diablo fans.

At this point, I just don’t know if we can fully believe or even understand everything Blizzard says until the full game is available. The full game, not alphas or betas, because I don’t trust it to have live game monetization paths like we just saw. My gut tells me they’ll at least try to get this right for the core fans, unlike Immortal, but the end result is anyone’s guess.

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