Diablo Immortal Review And Monetization Breakdown

Here’s a game I’ve been looking forward to ever since “Don’t you guys have phones” has been uttered at Blizzcon 2018. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on the game due to the chance of doing a monetization breakdown for the game, just to see how far Blizzard is willing to embrace mobile monetization and what new tricks they can come up with. As for the game, I’ve been a Diablo fan since I can remember so the fact that I get to review a new Diablo game? That’s the cherry on top. However, before jumping into the review, be aware of the disclaimers in the next paragraph in order to make sure your views and mine are aligned.

I have a PowerMAC at home (from 1998) that I still play Diablo 1 on. Heck, I’ve been playing Diablo 1 on my iPad for a few months now (and wrote a guide for you to play it as well). I’ve also spent an ungodly amount of time in Diablo II and I’ve been enjoying Diablo II: Resurrected.

I’ve skipped Diablo III entirely, both the base game and it’s expansion. The aesthetics and what blizzard was trying to do with it just didn’t mesh well with the person I was at that point in time and in my career. I haven’t played it at all and, instead, I used I and II to scratch the Diablo itch.

My approach to Diablo Immortal isn’t going to be from the perspective of a Diablo III fan. I’m going to review it as a mobile RPG in it’s own right and as the first Diablo Entry for mobile. Onto the Diablo Immortal Review!

Your Answer Upfront

Diablo Immortal is a true Diablo gaming experience that doesn’t feel like a barebones mobile RPG (that I was expecting). Instead, it elevates your mobile device to more closely resemble a portable console experience. It’s beautiful, fast and extremely well put together and a true entry in the franchise that is well aware of the platform it’s designed to run on. Take Diablo 3, make it more dark and grimy and streamline it for a mobile audience and you get Diablo Immortal. I name it the best mobile RPG release of the decade and give it a solid 3.5/5 ⭐️!

In this article we’ll take a look at the game from the perspective of a Mobile Game Designer and midcore gamer. We’ll start with setting a baseline for my expectations, move onto a live-post of my first impression of the game, from character creation towards the end of the first time user experience section (tutorial/onboarding). The full review will be up next and we will take a look at everything from Gameplay to Control Scheme, Aesthetics, Graphics, Performance and yes, even Monetization. By the end of the article you’ll have a pretty good idea if the game is right for you!

This article was updated after reaching and testing out the content in post-game, level 60! The Update has been added to the end of the article! We updated our review score to 3.5/5 ⭐️.

Setting the baseline for expectations

To start things off I’m walking into this game with the following expectations:

• It’s going to be a standard mobile-centric RPG with incredible production value
• The Economy Curve and approach to design is set to encourage in-app payments
• The overall game design is more streamlined compared to PC and Console RPG’s.
  • Note that this isn’t a fault towards the game itself.
  • Sadly, mobile games need to be designed this way due to the target audience. Long time Diablo fans are going to download the game and that is going to give it a huge boost in organic exposure.
  • This will also lead to Jack, Jill and your favorite grandmother to download the game because it will organically appear on the App Store.
  • In order for the free 2 play (or pay 2 win) economy to make sense, a ton of people need to play the game for at least a few weeks at a time. If the game is too hard to grasp for the normal mobile crowd those 1 week retention goals won’t be meet.

My setup for this game is that of a cross between an average mobile game setup and that of a desktop gamer.

I went down this route for two reasons:

• This is my home setup for mobile gaming (I wrote about it in the article called “Are iPads good for gaming?“). I always have the iPad Air 4 on a stand next to my desk and since my business setup is all Apple (I design a lot of games for iOS devices) I can use the 5K Display as a mirror monitor.
• Part of me wants to see if this game can work from the perspective of a PC/Console gamer.

We’re going to start off the review with a first impression in the tutorial/first time user experience sequence. It’s important to look at this especially since there’s going to be a good chunk of mobile-only players who will ONLY EVER EXPERIENCE this part of the game.

A good Day 1 retention for a Free Mobile RPG is around 45%. This means that >55% of players won’t be playing the game after the first day. With this being a strong IP with strong marketing and a huge, slightly older and more technical, playerbase, I’m willing to bet that number is going to be in the upper 60’s but that still leaves ~40% of players never going further than this.

Intro Sequence and First Impression

Just as expected the intro sequence screams Blizzard-quality level. The cinematic looks and sounds really great and stands way above most mobile RPG’s intro cinematic.

Reaching the main menu already gives me a preview of what (I feel) is to come. I’m noticing two problems here.

• The gamepad control gives me a virtual pointer that moves across the screen using the analogue controls instead of having a sticky pointer that goes through the buttons in succession. Not a bad thing but makes me feel a little bit like controller support is a bit of an afterthought, but it’s way to early to tell.
• As soon as I logged into my battle.NET account I received a prompt teaching me to “allow tracking”.

I “Asked App Not To Track” and moved on with my life.

The game’s class section once again harkens back to my first expectation. The production quality of the game is through the roof. I spent a good 15 minutes just moving back and forth between the classes, their descriptions and two cinematics for both Male and Female genders. Right off the bat we have 6 different mini cinematics, each with two variations.

I’m trying to imagine pitching this to a Product Owner for a Mobile RPG and not getting this idea shutdown with the explanation: “No, it’s not that important and it takes time. We should focus on more important things. This is a nice-to-have but I don’t want it”.

For my first go-around with the game I started with the Wizard class. I changed his hair and beard a little (surprised there’s very few different configurations for beard and hair, most of them favoring clean and short/medium approaches) and named my character Daylen (in honor of Daylen Amell from Dragon Age: Origins, mage start).

I’ve advanced through the game until the first boss fight against the Putrid Desecrator. Up until this point the gamepad controls almost made sense. They seem a tiny bit stiff but are manageable. I find it weird having to switch between character control and cursor mode in order to pickup items and navigate through the menus, it doesn’t feel all right. In situations like this I tend to switch to my touchpad for input control rather than just use the gamepad’s analogue stick, something that normal gamers with a gamepad don’t have access to.

The fight itself was pretty fun and easy, Diablo-esque indeed, but with no sense of peril. It makes sense, we’re still into the onboarding process.

After taking down the tutorial boss (Putrid Desecrator) I packed my iPad and went over to my office for a client meeting. Of course, I couldn’t help myself and after the client left I took out the game for a bit of fun. This is the point where I dropped the gamepad and decided to go a bit more hand’s on with the iPad Air 4 just so I can get a feel for how the mobile / touchscreen controls are!

After messing with the boss and advancing into the mine to save some villagers I’ve unlocked and gained access to the town and came face to face with Papa Deckard Cain!

I can’t help but feel that, although not a 100% Blizzard in-house developed title, the game received a ton of love and attention from the Blizz team, at least on feel and aesthetics. No mobile developer in their right mind would set up classic 2D Portrait-based dialogue in their mobile RPG in this way. They usually go for simple prompts, very little text and less gray and realistic portraits! Usually it “fun, animated, 3D with bright colors” everywhere.

After Cain’s introduction I am taken to go aid the guards to the West where I come face to face with the first actual proper boss of the game. He comes packing, telegraphs his attacks very well and requires the player stay on the move.

Don’t think this is a hard fight or a challenging one. There are health orbs everywhere. The fight only serves to get the players to understand that they can get out of the way of the attacks and keep them on the move. And I think it succeeds in this very very well.

I enjoyed this first actual boss fight with it’s different states. Oh, and my wizard unlocked a new skill just before the boss, called Ray Of Frost which, to be fair – behaves a bit like Elden Ring’s Comet Azure!

From this point onward, the rest of the game opens up. As soon as the FTUE ends, the first offer pack is made available (The Beginners Pack) and the game turns into an actual MMO with players present on the world map.

I purchased the pack for the equivalent of $0.99 and it gave me 60 eternal orbs (the hard currency of the game) and a weapon skin (The Inferno Within Weapon). We’ll talk more about the in-game f2p shop later in this review.

First Impression Conclusion

As far as first impressions go, this was a positive one. I was scared it’s going to be a quick reskin of one of Netease’s mobile games but I am pleasantly surprised so far. In the “Baseline of Expectation” section I mentioned that I’m expecting this to be a standard mobile centric RPG with an incredible production value. I’m happy to report that as far as first impressions go Diablo Immortal exceeded the expectation, by a wide margin.

If I were to describe my overall feel towards the game is that I’m slightly worried for how good I find it to be (as a mobile RPG). It’s worrisome to a degree. I was discussing the game with Radu Ziemba (Lead Designer @ Deadlime), a hardcore Diablo 3 and Resurrected player and he seems to really be enjoying the game. And I find myself doing the same.

I installed the game and had a totally different level of expectation for what it was to come. I don’t know what happened, but I have a feeling Blizzard didn’t just license the IP for a re-skin of one of Netease’s games and instead they became much much much more involved in the game’s development.

What I did not expect was for friends to message me saying “I got my first legendary” and for me to go “OMG REALLY?”. And I was not expecting for me to setup a time schedule for the weekend so I can setup some party games with other friends who are also playing. I know for a fact that very little design and programming is being done across quite a few local game development studio this Thursday judging by how many of my friends are “Online” right now on battle.NET.

The first impression sequence has been written live, as a direct feed into my way of thinking and window into my experiences as I booted up the game from the first install. For the remainder of this Diablo Immortal review and analysis, expect what’s written to be done after the fact.

Diablo Immortal Review

It’s been years since I’ve awaited with excitement and anticipation the release of a new mobile game! And, while my expectation and excitement was at an all time high, for the very wrong reasons, the amount of fun I’m currently having with the game cannot be expressed properly in words.

I jumped into the game expecting to be utterly disappointed and found myself loving it to a level I never imagined. The game is fun, fast and gorgeous and elevates my iPad gaming experience to a whole new level. Over the past 30-40 hours I found myself playing the game under all manner of environments and setups.

I played it at my desk, with my iPad placed on a stand and with a controller in hand. I played it on my phone while commuting to my office. I played Diablo Immortal with my iPad docked to a 50″ TV screen and I streamed my iPad’s screen to my 5K iMac Pro Display.

When I was writing the first impression section of this review I found myself angry with the fact that I had to STOP AND WRITE. My friends were messaging me in group chats saying “I’m out of the starting zone“. “OMG I just killed a boss“. “I found Deckard Cain“. “The graveyard battle against the undead mage was amazing“. “I got my first legendary!” I wanted to explore the content at the same pace with them and I wanted to avoid spoilers from them but I just couldn’t, the excitement was too much.

And I found myself hating myself for expecting… no, wanting the game to be a failure due to Blizzard’s 2018 approach to the community and their lack of tact. I expected the game to be a money grabbing, low effort, reskin of existing games and what I found might as well be the BEST MOBILE GAME RELEASE OF 2022. Or one of the best RPG’s ever released for mobile devices.

I never expected to be playing a AA+ RPG that turned my iPad from a tablet into a gaming console. With the gamepad in hand I played for 6 hours straight with no pause, something I haven’t done in a long time, especially on a mobile device.

And the game is not even the Single Player RPG that I was expecting. If you go into Diablo Immortal expecting to play an sRPG you’re going to be in for a shocking awakening after the on-boarding process. The game is an actual MMO RPG, Barrens chat and all.

Gameplay and Control

The game supports both touch screen controls as well as gamepad and controllers. For 80% of my play-through I’ve been using a DualShock 4 (PS4) controller and outside of minor annoyances in accessing menus via the pointer (a tackled-on last minute solution from Blizzard) I’ve been loving it.

The remaining 20% of my play-through done via touchscreen controls happened on my iPhone 12 Mini during commuting or toilet breaks or with my iPad on a stand just to see if I can do it (check out the picture in the First Impression section).

I even tested out the game via Universal Control (playing it from my Mac with mouse or touchpad). It kinda works, but I won’t spend too much time with it. If I could bind my main 5 skills to keyboard buttons it would be great but the iOS version doesn’t support this (I have yet to try the PC version of the game).

The combat is fast paced and fluid and the your character’s gameplay evolves as you level up and acquire loot. Abilities get modified based on the loot and equipment you have which allows you to find new and creative ways to improve your build.

Like I mentioned, I never played Diablo 3 so Diablo Immortal is my first ever experience with Rifts. I find them perfectly adequate and I keep eyeing the Crest Tab (more on them in the Monetization section of the review). From what my Diablo 3 playing friends said they are quicker and more streamlined and I can only account this to the fact that they’ve been tuned for the shorter mobile gameplay session. Overall I love them and I’m having tons of fun grinding my way through them in order to upgrade and improve my build.

And speaking of tuned for mobile, you can clearly see how many things were done to accommodate the mobile audience. From fast traveling to the merchants you need to shorter dungeon runs and GPS navigation, Blizzard held nothing back. I’m happy the game doesn’t feature auto-play as it was something I was sorta expecting (I wrote an entire article about “Why Is Autoplay So Common In Mobile Games“).

Be it with a gamepad or tablet in hand, the game’s control do not disappoint. They’re great, responsive, fluid and amazing and I feel like Blizzard and NetEase did an amazing job bringing Diablo to mobile devices, as far as controls go!

Aesthetics

The game is dark, gritty and completely gorgeous. For a mobile game the aesthetics are perfect. A good cross between Diablo 3’s cartoonish graphics and Diablo 2: Resurrected’s overall look. And given that the game takes places 5 years after the events of Diablo 2 the overall look fits perfectly nice. Let’s see what Blizzard does with Diablo 4 but until that happens I’d have to say that, in my book at least, Diablo Immortal has the best overall aesthetics of the entire lineup (I would have given this to D2Resurrected but I keep finding myself playing the old-school D2 as it was).

If the game’s look and feel isn’t up to your standards try going over to the Options Menu and check out the Display Settings. You can adjust the post-processing filter as well as many graphical settings (like Resolution Scaling, Image Sharpening, Anti-Aliasing, Fog, Shadows, Effects and Environmental Details).

Economy and In-App Purchases

Let’s talk about the elephant in the catacombs – Diablo Immortal’s economy and monetization. I hands down expected it to be far more worse than what it is and for a good chunk of my play-through (up until the mid 30’s) I didn’t have to engage with the in-game shop (outside of purchasing the Beginner’s Pack).

So far, the in-game shop isn’t all that in your face and it’s more reasonable than I, honestly, expected. I did a breakdown of the game’s prices and calculated the price of the items that it sells you in USD (my in-game prices are in RON, my country’s currency and I used a convertor from RON to USD and approximated the pricing in the USD counterpart. Expect some variations to happen due to the conversion rate, but the overall trends should be the same).

So let’s take a look at what exactly the game sells to you and for what price in USD.

The Featured Tab

The featured tab is your barebones standard “Get The Current Best Deals We Have For You” window of any mobile shop. It seems to feature the best deals that you can use to get your hands on the game’s main currency (Orbs).

You can purchase 600 orbs for the price of $10, leading us to say that the price of a single ORB is equal to $0,016. Having this in mind, we can then calculate what the “real world” price is for all the other items present at this point in time.

Crests Tab

What are crests in Diablo Immortal?

Crests (or Eternal Legendary Crests) are “powerful” items that can be used when opening an Elder Rift to add (two) modifiers to the rift. Completing the Elder Rift is guaranteed to reward a legendary Gem that can be sold on the “Market”.

Bundle Tab

The bundles tab is currently empty at the time of writing this review, with a lonely, solo offer being available – The Free Daily Reward. It’s contents are:

• (5000?) Gold (used to improve equipment and to make purchases at certain vendors)
• 20 Scrap Materials (Used to upgrade equipment)
• 3 Enchanted Dust (Used to upgrade equipment)
• Glowing Shards (Used to upgrade equipment)

Now, additional bundles will be made available as you complete dungeons and events!

The Cosmetics Tab

The cosmetics tab features skins which can be purchased and applied to your character. The cosmetic sets come in two variants: Standard and Collector. The difference between the two variants is that the Collector’s edition comes with its own custom portal to fit with the set.

The pricing in dollars for each Set is bellow and you can also find a Gallery with all the sets available for the Wizard.

The Currency Tab

There are technically two types of currencies in the game. You have the standard Orbs that we talked about and we also have Platinum – which is the currency used at some specialty vendors but most often than not at the Market!

As with all other mobile games your biggest savings in terms of spending on currencies increases with the price of the bundle. More expensive ones throw in bigger bonuses. From my estimates for every $100 spent in-game you save ~$15 if you go with the most expensive tier.

The Materials Tab

Last but not least we have the Materials Tab where you can purchase different materials that are used to “reforge bonus attributes” from the various types of materials. Every material costs 100 orbs to purchase.

• Wildfire Stone – Family Set Bonus – 2% chance to summon a fireball-spitting Hydra
• Tremor Stone – Family Set Bonus – Your Primary Attacks have a 2% chance to inflict 259 damage and Stun nearby enemies for 1.5 seconds
• Jolt Stone – Family Set Bonus – You have a 2% chance when attacked to Immobilize your attacker
• Vegeance Stone – Your Primary Attacks have a 2% chance to increase all damage you deal by 100% for 1 second
• Barrier Stone – You Have a 2% chance when attacked to gain an absorption shield for 6 seconds
• Ravanger Stone – You have a 2% chance when you defeat an enemy to cause the corpse to explode, damaging all nearby enemies

Monetization Conclusion

From my own experience with the game so far the economy doesn’t seem all that bad. For people in the early-to-mid game you have a ton of free things to claim as you progress through the game. There are Daily Rewards, First Kill Rewards and Event Rewards sprinkled everywhere. Just by levelling up or completing dungeons you gain rewards (Gold, Items) and upgrade materials and there are rewards locked behind various Server Progresses and World Events!

However, this is a Free2Play Game. An extremely well done, gorgeous RPG, but it’s still a Free2Play game. Up until the mid 30’s (Levels) both my Wizard and Crusader had a smooth sailing experience. But around level 34-35 they both ran out of story quests to advance and level up so I had to rely on a ton of grinding (and spending a bit of money).

I feel that the monetization isn’t extremely in-your-face. I don’t like it but I also don’t hate and they do a good job of making it seem non-intrusive. However, I’ve seen this before and there’s a pretty decent chance things will change after a few months, after the KPI’s are established and compared against other NetEase games. So far it doesn’t feel like Pay2Win, more like “Grind2Win because it’s a Diablo Game but also rest assured you can drop some cash to speed up the process“. Phew, that’s a mouth-full.

They might decide that they need to be more aggressive with it since they are leaving money on the table with the current approach. But from my 30 hours of gameplay so far? Things are pretty sweet! A ton better than I was expecting (and this seems to be a common theme with this review).

Diablo Immortal End-Game Content Impression (Level 60)

Radu, who we mentioned earlier, managed to reach the end-game content faster than me. What follows is his impressions in the End-Game Content.

TL:DR “I pushed so hard and i’ve never felt so alone in late game.”

3 late-game mechanics combined to take away the casual-hardcore players fun.

1. Higher difficulties blocking progression towards party play. Hell 1, need 2 players are required to run the instance. Hell 2 and above you will need 4 players. Immediate Reverse funnel for Fast grinders. You end up alone and not being able to push in the first days, only if you have a pre-set party. During the day when i had dailies, i had nobody to do them with. Ques were long and dawning.

2. Warband activities. Raids tied to a group of 8 people that have to sync together similar to WoW raids. Be there every wends day at 8 PM but on a mobile game.

3. Server wide XP penalty. Worst thing that took the fun away. This felt like being hit by a train: “You are above the Server Paragon Level. XP rewards are reduced”. This basically allows people to be blocked until everybody is there, if they will be there.

I always loved the free-push potential of diablo 3 seasonals, where i could start in the first day and try to see how much you could aim in 24 hours. But Diablo Immortal proves that everybody should be somehow in-line with that they seem progress worthy. They average the top people to be stopped so they won’t be able to destroy you in PVP – LEVEL wise, but instead you could destroy in PVP with some hard-earned money spent inside the game.

Radu Ziemba, Managing Partner @ DeadLime Games

I managed to verify Radu’s claim about the Reduced Rewards in Diablo Immortal and I reduced the game’s score from 4/5 ⭐️to 3.5 ⭐️ because of this. The game is still great and I feel that for players like me, who don’t get to Level 60 in 3 days like Radu, the penalty won’t be felt. However I hate the idea of being penalised for something I’m good OR have a lot of time to dedicate to.

Diablo Immortal Review Conclusion

Diablo Immortal is a true Diablo gaming experience that doesn’t feel like a barebones mobile RPG (that I was expecting). Instead, it elevates your mobile device to more closely resemble a portable console experience. It’s beautiful, fast and extremely well put together and a true entry in the franchise that is well aware of the platform it’s designed to run on. Take Diablo 3, make it more dark and grimy and streamline it for a mobile audience and you get Diablo Immortal. I name it the best mobile RPG release of the decade and give it a solid 3.5/5 ⭐️!

Diablo Immortal FAQ

I’ve had my 30+ hours with the game and I expect many many many more to come! I’ll take this opportunity to answer some commonly asked questions about Diablo Immortal that I saw posted on Reddit communities or in gaming chats over the past few days.

Is Diablo Immortal free?

Diablo Immortal is a completely Free-to-Play game available on Mobile Devices (both iOS and Android Devices) as well as PC (Windows). You can’t play the game on a Mac and not even on M1 Macs since it’s delisted from the iOS App Store for M1 Devices.

Is Diablo Immortal fun?

Diablo Immortal is the most fun I’ve had with a mobile RPG in years! It has great controls (especially when paired with a wireless gamepad), fluid animations, great aesthetics, amazing sound design and the combat is addictive and fast paced. Doing dungeon runs, completing quests and acquiring loot is at a completely next level when compared with other mobile offerings.

Where is Diablo Immortal available?

Diablo Immortal can be downloaded for iOS device from the App Store, Android Devices from the PlayStore and the Windows version from Blizzard’s Battle.NET service!

What is the point of Diablo Immortal?

Diablo Immortal is the first entry of the Diablo franchise that’s been built from the ground up for a mobile gaming experience. This being said it’s leagues ahead of any other mobile game in terms of scope and production level. The game reminds me of the old Blizzard since every single part of the game screams QUALITY! The settings menu and all the graphics options are akin to a fully featured PC game than anything else, the aesthetics are amazing and the entire game makes your mobile device feel like a portable console!

Does Diablo Immortal Have Microtransactions?

Yes, the game has a shop where it sells cosmetics, in-game currency, materials and bundles with all manner of items, materials and currency. Prices vary from $0.99 to $100 but the game is really generous with its daily rewards, bonuses and level up rewards that you can claim for free. The game is not locked behind pay gates and progression doesn’t require spending of real money, however after level 35 you will have to grind to level up.

Can you beat Diablo Immortal without paying?

From my current experience playing the game I am 100% sure you can finish all of the story quests and participate in the end-game content without having to pay for a single thing. It’s important to keep in mind that the game is a free2play game with a LiveOPS team behind it and, depending on how well it does revenue wise, things might change. The Live Operations team can, at any point, change things and introduce pay gates or increase the grinding requirements to advance.

Can you use a controller with Diablo Immortal?

You can use a Controller or gamepad with Diablo Immortal. I spent more than 80% of my first 30 hours of the game playing with a DualShock 4 (PS4) controller and I loved every second of the experience. The only slight annoyance is the need to navigate through the menus using a pointer controlled by the analogue stick.

Where To Next?

We have more reviews of both free and premium mobile games, such as Metal Slug Attack or QB Planets! We also have other articles with tidbits and interesting facts, like this article that answers the question “What is the Number 1 mobile eSports Game” sorted by the prize pool.

If you want to stay up to date with our articles, make sure to give us a follow on twitter. Or, leave a comment bellow telling us what premium or free smartphones games you enjoy!

You can also check out our coverage of other iOS games and Android games just released for your smartphone. Thank you for visiting Best Smartphone Games, I sincerely hope we’ve been of service!