Ignoring the more pressing issues facing Blizzard and Activision for the moment, with the other focus being on Diablo IV‘s development, some of you are probably asking just where Diablo Immortal is in all of this. Well, per Blizzard’s press release, Immortal is being left off the board for 2021.
Following player feedback during the game’s Closed Alpha, as well as “additional opportunities to improve [Immortal‘s] gameplay experience”, the game is now being planned for “the first half of 2022“. The delay is to allow the team to “add substantial improvements to the whole game.”
Those improvements look to include the following:
- Iterating the Helliquary system to include PvE raids, with the Helliquary Boss fights redesigned to accommodate raids of up to 8 players.
- More meaningful interaction with Bounties, which will be “more engaging and fruitful”
- Challenge Rifts will now have exclusive upgrade materials
- The PvP Battleground will receive an overhaul, with the devteam evaluating “matchmaking, earning rankings, class balance, time to kill, and other defining elements” to make it more enjoyable
- Optimizing the Cycle of Strife end-game feature
- Introducing controller support
- Players with higher Paragon levels will be able to earn more powerful items on higher difficulties
- Adding bonus XP gain for players who play less often, and replacing its weekly XP cap with a global cap that increases over time in order to allow players more “flexibility” with their playtime.
Meanwhile, Diablo IV is currently in development for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.