Blizzard Announces Diablo Immortal, and Fans Hate It

This was a very busy weekend for the video game world namely because this was the weekend of the yearly Activision-Blizzard circle-jerk known as Blizzcon. A lot of stuff was announced over the weekend - a new hero for Overwatch and the beta for the Vanilla WoW servers! - but the one that drew the most attention – and the most ire – was this bad boy:

Diablo Immortal.

Enter the world of Diablo Immortal, a new entry in the Diablo universe. Featuring the fluid hack-and-slash action role playing game experience you know and love, this visually stunning mobile experience is a cut above the rest and puts the Eternal Conflict at your fingertips—anytime, anywhere.

So yes, we have ourselves a mobile Diablo. Something fans were not expecting nor are terribly happy with. This video alone has 10k “likes,” and around 152k dislikes – not the most disliked video ever made by a video game company, but pretty darn close.

There are three big reasons for the hate: the first was that Blizzard fans were expecting a new Diablo game (like a remake of the first or a proper Diablo 4) to be announced at this year’s Blizzcon, and instead, they got this, which Blizzard defended through a hail of “boos” with a now iconic line, “Don’t you guys have phones?”
 
The second reason is that the game is being developed with the help of a Chinese mobile studio called NetEase, who produces a lot of games that look shockingly similar to this. Fans are claiming (although Blizzard passionately denies) that this new game is just a re-skin of earlier NetEase games.
 
The third reason is that this is a mobile game, which, if you have any recollection of history, means that there’s an overwhelming chance that Blizzard will add some very unfair, unfun, and uncool microtransactions.

So yes, there’s that. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions on how you feel about this, but if you’re anything like the general gaming public, I’m gonna guess it’s not good.