We tested Diablo Immortal, the new MMORPG of the Blizzard series on PC

It’s finally time: after much discussion and a long period of closed-door testing, Diablo Immortal has made its official debut on iOS and Android, and simultaneously on PC with a beta version that already supports cross-save functionality. progress.

Thanks to early activation of games downloaded from the App Store and Google Play Store, I tried Diablo Immortal In its final version on mobile, we’ll get our hands on the PC version later and continue our Crusader’s adventure in the dark and disturbing world of Sanctuary: here’s our go-to.

Grades: painless pass or almost

If you’ve read our previous Diablo Immortal trial, you’ll know that we’re facing the Blizzard game experience on an Android tablet under the controls of a powerful Necromancer, the last of the six trials. classes Introduced by developers including Barbarian, Mage, Demon Hunter, Monk, and Crusader.

Well, that progress unfortunately evaporated with the official launch and we had to start over Our adventure chooses to dive into the insidious scenarios of the game, this time donning the Crusader’s heavy armor, and thus opting for a style of direct attacks rather than ranged summons and spells.

As mentioned, the download of Diablo Immortal is pre-enabled on iOS and Android, and as such, we were able to recover some of the lost hours before switching to the PC client, which was definitely unlocked yesterday, June 2nd. After logging in with your account war.netWe found our crusader and others four optional slotscan be used if you want to do multiple builds at the same time.

functionality cross save It was expected but wow, it was considered natural and turned out to be really useful in the context of such a product. In fact, we will be able to continue our progress by easily switching from one platform to another, playing on our smartphone while away from home, and once again adventuring on PC: it’s a really good thing.

computer version

We had overlooked the news about Diablo Immortal’s development after it was announced that the game would also be coming to PC, so we discovered that this latest incarnation of the game is still in beta as it is. mobile versions and currently suffering some very important shortcomings.

The feeling that Blizzard is limiting itself to just these emulate android version In a Windows environment, it makes its way compelling when we read “tap to tap” on the home screen, or when you have to press and drag to navigate items in the inventory with the mouse or controller. In short, the game right now not minimally optimized for the platform it runs on.

That’s not all: the just mentioned controller It is partially and problematically supported by Diablo Immortal on PC. For example Xbox One pad not working, refusing to detect movement of analog sticks. DualSense there is no problem in this respect. However, navigating the various interfaces is still the exclusive prerogative of the mouse, so you will find yourself having to keep both devices close at hand.

The question is unfortunately the technical sector and especially graphics options Here also Diablo Immortal on PC that emulates what is available on mobile with the ability to choose the frame rate (30, 60, 120 or unlimited), enable or disable vertical sync and choose a qualitative preset for various effects. change resolution, apparently nailed to 1080p. For now there doesn’t seem to be a way to increase this even by acting on the config files, but there is some stuttering part, probably due to netcode.

build and play

Beyond the shortcomings recorded in the PC, structure And gameplay Diablo Immortal confirms on mobile the qualities we already appreciated in beta, delivering an experience that fits perfectly with the franchise but adapted to the new MMORPG context, which brings with it some undoubted advantages but also some unexciting results.

this battle system well-tested series, upgradable abilities, rich customizable inventory and loot and crafting mechanics and all diversions PvE And PvP It’s perfectly infused into the gameplay formula, with the possibility of finding other players to face dungeons and events on the fly very quickly and then finally leaving the group if you want to concentrate on progressing solo.

We’ll cover the competitive aspects of the experience in the review phase, but as you know, the content is not lacking and is often intertwined. game over that promises to be very rich and fun, and that seems to have been accomplished without ever getting into traditional paywalls: microtransactions In Diablo Immortal it seems flexible and free of certain restrictions.

when it comes Disadvantages of the MMORPG formulano doubt acting along with many other players in the scenario and seeing them fight enemies unseen to us in the same places we just fought makes the single experience a bit dirty and instead de-emphasizes the specific sequences and dialogues that matter. to be included in the narrative.

Technical realization

The PC version of Diablo Immortal is therefore still open construction siteThe game works pretty well when on iOS and Android, but after a few minutes the device needs the latest generation terminals to be able to activate the best quality presets and maintain the high framerate without overheating. For the record, we were able to set the quality to “very high” (“ultra” inaccessible) on the iPhone 12 Pro, but decided on 30fps to avoid overheating.

In a Windows environment powered by the RTX 3070, we obviously had no issues playing games. 1080p and 60fps everything is maxed out (but even here the “ultra” preset is currently missing) and we imagine we could easily go 120fps and beyond on compatible TVs. In our case, we didn’t notice any real low definition issues on the 4K display, although 2160p support would obviously make some difference.

Beyond the lacking performance and features, there’s no doubt graphic Diablo Immortal is a wonderful sight embellished with a style that reminds us in many ways of the second part, thus abandoning the bright colors of Diablo 3 in favor of darker atmospheres. While some helpful actions for the missions are not displayed, a lot of attention has been paid to the details and the animations seem smooth and well done.

In short, visually the developers of Blizzard did a great job, but also the industry sound great attention to detail, consider the fully English-speaking dialogues (with Italian subtitles), very well interpreted, and overall it has a full-bodied and enveloping sound design that manages to be included, especially if you wear a good pair of headphones. .