It's no secret that Blizzard has taken its time developing Diablo Immortal over the last four years. The 2018 announcement didn't go over very well, leaving a dark shadow over the game for some time. Still, in recent years Blizzard has been very upfront about the game's development, almost to a fault, as it was apparent the ARPG would be pay-to-win since the alpha, and the recent news the game is blocked in a few countries over its excessive monetization isn't a good sign either. Still, there's an entirely new world of PvE to explore that isn't held back by the game's many ways to pay, which means the story content is viable for all free players.

Today marks the initial rollout for Diablo Immortal on mobile (with a beta for PC gamers going live tomorrow), and the ARPG will be slowly landing in new regions in the buildup to its official launch date of June 2nd (with a few other territories launching on June 22nd, such as Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macao, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand). So even though we are a day out from the official release, today actually marks the beginning of the rollout.

Since we are still a day away from the June 2nd release date, the above release date trailer for Diablo Immortal is the latest video to watch if you're looking to get a glimpse of the game in action. As you can see, tit easily looks the part, with detailed graphics that compare to Diablo 3, if not surpasses them.

Starting out, Diablo Immortal offers exactly what any Diablo fan would want, tons of hack and slash action spread out in bite-sized offerings, making it easy to jump in and jump out, perfect for a mobile release. There are six classes to choose from, including Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, and Wizard. Each brings their own skills and requires unique armors and weapons, so make sure you choose a character that leans towards your preferred playstyle.

Diablo Immortal release play store screen (1)

Better yet, we're not limited to the touch controls, and even though they work wonderfully, controller support is also an option across mobile and PC, and the game controls are pretty great with this method. Blizzard has seemingly gone all-in on accessibility options, which sure is refreshing in an industry that typically forgoes detailed control options.

As far as performance goes, Diablo Immortal is demanding, but you have your choice of low, medium, and high settings, along with a framerate option that can be capped at 30FPS or 60FPS. You can even drill down to individual settings to dial in your performance, and there are plenty to adjust, from fog to anti-aliasing to bloom. So if you're used to adjusting your game settings on PC, then you should feel right at home tweaking Diablo Immortal.

One thing to keep in mind is that Diablo Immortal is an incredibly large game. The primary download is broken up into five initial segments for Westmarch, and it will take some time to fully install everything. Luckily the game downloads as you play, so you don't have to wait to jump in, but you'll still the need the room, so make sure you've cleared at least 2.4GB of disk space, and if you'd like to fit everything, then you'll need more than 10GB. Oh, and if you think that's bad, the PC versions clocks in at 24GB.

Of course, Diablo Immortal is free-to-play, with NetEase attached to the title, so it was always a given the game's monetization would be awful, and sure enough, it is. Not only is there an optional battle pass to take advantage of player FOMO, but there's also a secondary subscription that rewards more items, leaving plenty of opportunities to pay to gain rewards at a faster pace than playing for free. Worse yet, many of these rewards, like Crests, are used to boost the quality of guaranteed drops, drops that are then used to power up your weapons. So even though all loot is findable in the game, the tools needed to improve gear can be gained with money, and the more money someone drops, the more advantage they have over free payers, the definition of pay-to-win. Add on top a PvP mode, and you can see exactly why you can pay for an advantage.

All in all, Diablo Immortal took its time coming, and it would seem the wait was at least worth it for the added controller support and overall polish. The game looks great, performs well with tons of settings to dip into, and controls perfectly with the touchscreen and controllers. It's clear that blizzard polished the game to a high sheen, but this is also true of the greedy pay-to-win monetization; there are many ways to pay endlessly. So if you can ignore the greed, there's plenty of quality ARPG gameplay to experience, but if you have plans to compete in end-game PvP content, you're going to be left behind quickly as a free player. So as expected, Diablo Immortal is a mixed bag, but at least it's a mixed bag that offers cross-platform play across mobile and PC, making it easy to try no matter where you prefer to play.

Of course, if you'd like to read through our hands-on with the stable version of Diablo Immortal, you can read all about the game's mechanics and monetization here.