Diablo Immortal Delayed: Blizzard Explains Why
It's been a while since we last heard from Diablo Immortal, but along with its most recent financial report, Blizzard shared some news on the game. Unfortunately, the news isn't great for people who have been looking forward to Diablo Immortal, as Blizzard has decided to delay it. The delay seems fairly significant too, but Blizzard did share details on how it will utilize the extra time it now has to work on Diablo Immortal.In a post to its website, Blizzard announced that Diablo Immortal has been delayed to the first half of 2022. Originally, the game was slated to launch sometime this year, though Blizzard's release window never got more specific than that. With that in mind, it's difficult to know how long this delay actually is – it could be anything from a few months to somewhere closer to a year.
In any case, Blizzard today said that it will take this time to build out both the PvE and PvP content in the game. On the PvE front, we'll see 8-man raids added to the Helliquary system, with bosses designed around having those 8-man teams take them on. In addition, blizzard said that it will also be tweaking Bounties to be "more engaging and fruitful," along will changing Challenge Rifts to drop upgrade materials that can't be found anywhere else in the game.
On the PvP side, Blizzard says that it will continue to tweak Battlegrounds and build out the clan-based Cycle of Strife PvP system that was first introduced in the closed alpha. We'll also see Diablo Immortal get controller support, along with some more features centered around character possession. Finally, if you hated the idea of the weekly XP cap that was added in closed alpha, the good news is that it's being changed to a global XP cap that increases over time. So, while there will still be an XP cap, Blizzard says that it'll allow players to be more flexible with how and when they earn XP.
Diablo Immortal has a lot to prove because its announcement was anything but the hype-filled event that Blizzard reveals usually are. There are a lot of Diablo fans out there who are skeptical that Diablo Immortal will be worth their time, so Blizzard certainly has its work cut out for it as it attempts to improve the game further during this delay.