Blizzard fans can look forward to not just one, but twoDiablogames currently in development.Diablo 4is obviously the big upcoming release that most core Blizzard fans are looking forward to. ButDiablo Immortal, Blizzard’s mobile game, may surprise Blizzard fans with how popular it will be. That’s a sentiment that Blizzard shares. In a recent Blizzard quarterly earnings call, Activision COO Daniel Alegre described playtesting impressions ofDiablo Immortalas “hugely enthusiastic.”
According to Alegre,Diablo Immortalwas made playable in an internal testing environment during the company’s third quarter. The response is assumedly coming fromBlizzard employees, so it should be taken with some skepticism. Nevertheless, it’s notable that Alegre is confident enough to talk about it publicly.
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Additionally, Alegre also mentions that Blizzard will soon be expandingDiablo Immortal’s playtesting. The next round of testing will expand to “external regional testing,” meaning that testing groups in certain regions across the world will soon get to play the game. These tests won’t be available publically, and they may not even be drawn from Blizzard’s open registration testing pool, but it does show how far the game’s development has progressed. It’s an important step in moving toward publically available testing.
It’s been some time since Blizzard said much of anything aboutDiablo Immortal. A short trailer was released forDiablo Immortalas part of the ChinaJoy 2020 convention, as China appears to be a major target market forDiablo Immortal. Beyond that, in February Blizzard announcedplans forDiablo Immortalto begin testing phases in 2020, and clearly, the company has now delivered on that promise. To be fair, they said regional testing would begin mid-2020, not late 2020, so it seems some development delays have come through.
Delays in planned development milestones are quite understandable given the nature of 2020. Blizzard’s mid-2020 testing plans were announced before the pandemic had taken root, and dozens of other games have had their development schedules hampered and delayed since. If not for theCOVID-19 pandemic,Diablo Immortalmay very well have progressed to public testing at this point. It may even have had a release date announced.
As things stand, it’ll still be some time before further news regardingDiablo Immortalis shared. January 2021 seems like the earliest opportunity as part of further Activision Blizzard fiscal reporting. If not, thenBlizzCon 2021 in Februaryshould be able to confirm the current status of the game’s development. By then, a release date, or at least further testing plans, should be confirmed. In the meantime,Diablofans will have to be content with the brief details that have been shared.
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