Diablo Immortal Tests Will Happen Later This Year
Diablo Immortal will be in the hands of mobile gamers at some point in the middle of this year, [...]
Diablo Immortal will be in the hands of mobile gamers at some point in the middle of this year, Activision Blizzard said during its recent earnings reports. That's not much of a timeframe to go off of, but it's more than what Diablo fans had before considering how quiet things have been on the Diablo Immortal front. Like other mobile games, this initial test will be a regional one that'll happen, but we don't yet know when or where it'll be held.
The latest comments on Diablo Immortal came from Coddy Johnson, president and COO of Activision Blizzard, who looked ahead to some of the company's next projects during the recent earnings report. A transcript of that report seen here included mentions of several Blizzard games that are in the works, one of which is the mobile title Diablo Immortal.
Johnson said the regional tests would begin in "the middle of the year."
"Blizzard's teams, as you know, are working on the brightest pipeline in its history, including Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 of PC and console, and Diablo Immortal, a mobile game, developed in partnership that is continues to make good progress, and will move into the testing phase with its first regional test planned for the middle of the year," Johnson said.
The partner mentioned there and referenced again in Activision Blizzard's slideshow tied to the earnings reports is NetEase. NetEase is the Chinese company responsible for other mobile games like Knives Out and Rules of Survival. Yang Zhaoxuan, the CFO of NetEase, said last March that the game was "pretty much ready" and that all questions about a launch should be directed to Activision Blizzard.
A new trailer for Diablo Immortal was released towards the end of 2019 to give players an update on what'd been done since the game was announced. The trailer was released during BlizzCon 2019 just one year after game was unveiled and was met with harsh criticism from people who were expecting a more traditional Diablo game on the PC and not a mobile title.
Blizzard didn't expect such a negative reaction to Diablo Immortal, but it adjusted its plans accordingly for last year's BlizzCon. Diablo Immortal received little attention during BlizzCon 2019, but Blizzard made sure to put a heavy emphasis on Diablo 4.