Diablo Immortal became infamous when Blizzard’s Wyatt Cheng dropped the gem that was, “Do you guys not have phones?” That was in response to a hostile Blizzcon crowd that wasn’t happy about its mobile exclusivity. Even though the developers downplayed the role a PC port would have, it turns out that they were wrong. At least that is what Blizzard now feels, since it has confirmed that Diablo Immortal will launch on PC. An open beta for the PC version is planned for June 2.
However, the reason for the complete flip around is probably not what you expect. According to a new developer blog post, the deciding factor that encouraged Blizzard to launch Diablo Immortal on PC was the fear of emulation. More specifically, Blizzard believes that even if it doesn’t release a PC port fans will emulate Immortal anyway. Rather than having its fanbase settle for unoptimized emulation, developing an official release was thought to be the better option.
Interestingly, Blizzard provided some insight as to why Diablo Immortal wasn’t originally going to launch on PC. It stated that it did not believe that it would be “doing the title justice by releasing a game originally designed for mobile on PC.” This is an understandable argument given some of the industry’s past attempts at porting mobile games to PC.
Even so, it’s nice to see that Blizzard went ahead with a PC release. Diablo has always been a PC-focused franchise so it didn’t seem right that PC gamers were going to miss out on it. The option to enjoy the game on mobile is still there, but those wanting to play on a more powerful machine now have the choice. Plus Immortal will feature cross-play and cross-progression so players are free to switch between devices at will.
Making Immortal PC compatible
Making a game of Immortal‘s scale PC compatible is a bigger task than it may sound. Blizzard emphasizes just how many features had to be implemented to facilitate the port. That includes mouse and keyboard controls, custom key binds, controller support, a HUD rework, new menus, and a fully-functional chat system.
