Diablo 4 is out in the wild. Lilith’s hatred has infected Sanctuary, with her father, Mephisto, poised to take the reigns. We’ve seen three seasons so far, with everything from vampires to odd, mechanical spiders. Diablo 4 is very much the Diablo game, and it’s here to stay. Yet, there’s also Diablo Immortal, the seemingly forgotten mobile-focused arc of the Sanctuary saga. Having just released its 2024 roadmap, I caught up with executive producer Peiwen Yao and lead designer Scott Burgess to ask about how Immortal plans to keep up with its mainline counterpart coming into the new year.
After all, there’s a lot for Diablo Immortal to contend with. There’s the highly anticipated Diablo 4 DLC, Vessel of Hatred, then Diablo 4 Season 4 which looks like it’s almost a full-scale, much-needed reboot for the struggling RPG game.
In an exclusive PCGamesN interview, I ask Yao if she worries that, post Diablo 4-launch, Immortal has been somewhat forgotten. “Not at all!” she says with confidence. “Our community remains active, and we’ve been adding consistent updates with new content, gameplay mechanics, balance changes, a continuous storyline, and more.”
She notes that, over the past year, we’ve seen the creation of the all-new vampiric Blood Knight class, as well as a slew of new content – including the colossal Splintered Souls update. “After being released last year, Blood Knight quickly became the most popular class option, and our highly engaged community jumped into the loads of other content as well.”
Yao notes that there’s “great synergy between Diablo 4 and Diablo Immortal,” recalling that “when D4 launched, more players came back to play Immortal on-the-go, and our first-anniversary collaboration was very well received. These two games still have different goals and audiences – whether that is the mobile market or the classic community – but they complement each other by filling different niches.”
“We love exploring ways to collaborate with other Diablo titles,” says Burgess. “Narratively, it can be a challenge; these are different games that happen at different points in the timeline. If we can find a way to make it work, nothing is off the table!”
Looking to the future, then, I ask Yao how Immortal will continue to innovate separately from Diablo 4, while maintaining the core tenets of what makes Sanctuary so special. “One thing that sets Diablo Immortal apart is our flexible cadence in when and how we add new additions
to the game,” she replies. “Our goal with Immortal is to add new content regularly with either updates to systems and improvements to core mechanics, or major updates that include new zones, story, dungeons, game modes, etc.
“With a regular stream of content, our players can hop into their characters that they have built up and enjoy everything new to the game at any point. This encourages us to find ways to innovate with features like the class change system so players can experiment with different classes without completely restarting or find ways to keep iterating on the paragon system for continuous progression and power gain.”
Immortal isn’t slowing down, with another new class lurking just over the horizon, then the huge new Worldstone Quests, broken into two halves. There’s a new co-op mode, new Helliquary bosses – the works, and with the all-new Diablo Immortal 2.3 update introducing the game’s “rarest and strongest” items so far there’s no better time to dive in than the present.
If you’re planning on taking Immortal for a spin, we have a rundown of all the best Diablo Immortal builds for you to check out ahead of time. Or, if you’re still grinding through Diablo 4 Season 3, we have a list of the best Diablo 4 builds, too.
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