The Diablo Immortal China website has been updated with new Class animations and models.

  • Diablo Immortal China Website Updated: New Polished Models

Visit YouTube to watch in 1080HD and Fullscreen.

The Chinajoy 2020 Blizzard Stage Livestream begins on August 1.

DIABLO IMMORTAL GAMEPLAY VIDEO

The Diablo Immortal gameplay video was put together especifically for the Chinese market. You can tell by three specific highlights: the lack of blood and gore; the Necromancer’s skeleton minions lack bones and have been given flesh; and the chinese text, of course.

This is not Blizzard or NetEase’s fault. They are simply adjusting to abide to chinese law and censorship. The games can’t depict skeletons or corpses, and other restrictions.

So don’t be disappointed with the gameplay video. At some point, Blizzard will reveal the western version with blood and gore, bones, and skeleton minions.

Another thing to note from this video is that NetEase made a mistake or intentionally used video clips from at least three different iterations to fill the video length.

You can tell of the differences between the three iterations by looking at the UI. In specific, that red environment scene when the giant monster charges out of the portal and tackles the Wizard, the Health bar UI is outdated (it is from the 2018 demo).

Here you can see the UI iterations by year to compare with the 2020 video. The first one is 2018 gameplay by Bahjeera and Jen playing in an Android Samsung Galaxy Note 8. The 2019 gameplay is by PintiPanda playing in an iPad Pro. The 2020 gameplay is from the Diablo Immortal (China) website.

  • 2018
  • 2019
  • 2020

Another thing that we didn’t know in 2018 or 2019 is that Diablo Immortal supports up to 6 players in a dungeon, instead of 4 (Diablo III). Here you can see all the 6 classes fighting a dungeon boss: the Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Necromancer, Monk and the Wizard.

However, something I missed earlier is there are 10 players in this outdoor event shown in the July 29, 2020 gameplay video at 1:42.

DIABLO IMMORTAL UI ANALYSIS

The new polished models show us how much work Blizzard and NetEase have put into Diablo Immortal since BlizzCon 2019. They are taking serious the playerbase feedback.

The ChinaJoy 2020 Blizzard schedule doesn’t mention Diablo Immortal at all, but considering that the Diablo Immortal China website has been updated hours before ChinaJoy starts takes me back to BlizzCon 2019 where no Diablo Immortal was featured in the schedule, but there were demo stations to play the game, and a website update with the gameplay video.

If we don’t get any surprises at ChinaJoy, they might be going that route again by updating the website instead; and what an update.

Take a look at the new Diablo Immortal UI.

TOP-LEFT CORNER

  • We can see the Barbarian portrait with the health bar. Your level is also shown there (in this case level 49).
  • Any buffs are shown below the health bar, and some of them stack up to 10 times (maybe more).
  • The PLUS sign is most likely to invite a player from your friends list. Another video shows two-faces instead of the PLUS sign. The two-faces means multiplayer. It is possible it also works as a LFG tool.
  • The icon to the left of the Barbarian is intriguing. Is Marisum another player in the Barbarian’s team… or is Marisum a Follower/Companion/Hired Mercenary who is currently dead? Is he maybe an NPC that follows you until the completion of the quest? Hmm…

TOP-CENTER

  • Here you can see the health bar of monsters.
  • The left side shows the level of the monster.
  • At the far right of the health bar you can see a paw. This tells players the type of monster: Humanoid or Beast.

TOP-RIGHT CORNER

  • Mini-map gives a bit more of real-estate in the shape of a rectangle, instead of a circle or square shape.
  • The location name within the zone is displayed there: Tamoe Mountains.
  • The bag icon is the Inventory.
  • The three lines above the bag icon is the Menu/Settings. Here we might be able to access our account/profile page, graphics and volume settings, and other unknown other features.
  • I can see a lack of a Store icon, so it is safe to say the Store hasn’t been implemented in that internal build.

BELOW THE MINI-MAP

Below the Mini-Map we can now put a name to the person icon we see to the left of the Barbarian portrait. Marisum is dead, and this UI component tells us that Marisum can be revived by pressing that button. The message says: The Altar is fully charged.

Is Marisum another player? A Hired Mercenary? Follower? Or an NPC for that specific quest? Intriguing either way as we haven’t heard about this feature from Blizzard in the past couple of BlizzCons (2018-2019).

BOTTOM-RIGHT CORNER

  • The ability buttons are located here.
  • The big button is the main attack. As you spam it, a 1/4 of a circle bar is filled — that is the indicator that tells you when your Ultimate ability is ready
  • We can see that when the Barbarian casts Whirlwind, he can’t cast any other abilities until the duration of the Whirlwind is over. All other buttons get greyed out and a “No can’t do” diagonal line across the circles.
  • There is a circular indicator around the Whirlwind button when you press it that tells you how long until the animation is over.
  • Most of the Barbarian abilities have a 10 seconds cooldown.
  • Among the buttons we can see: Charge, weapon slam, Ancient Spear (chain hooks), and whirlwind.
  • The Health Potion stacks beyond 25+ and easily accessible above the ability buttons UI.

Observation: The Whirlwind button shown here is not the same art shown in the website. It makes me think that the Whirlwind ability can be upgraded at higher levels when it is unlocked, or they simply changed the art.

BOTTOM-CENTER

At the bottom center, we have the usual chat bubble icon which means you can toggle on/off the Chat window. The question is whether the button lights up when a player types a message during the game … like “heal me!” or “rez me.”

BOTTOM-LEFT CORNER

In this part the UI is very straightforward:

  • Time of the day/evening.
  • Battery power remaining
  • Wi-Fi / Signal strength

MYSTERY POTION

Here you can clearly see a new type of Potion that stacks up to 100. Its hue ranges between yellow-orange. Where have we seen this from before?

Could it be the return of throwable Oil Potions from Diablo II? Or is this going to be something else? Here is an image from the official Diablo II Guide Website.

GAMEPLAY ANALYSIS

The new 2020 gameplay video gives us a lot of information that we haven’t seen before at BlizzCon 2018 or 2019.

Let’s start with the Barbarian. Here you can see three new abilities not shown in the website.

We can’t see the name of the abilities, but based on the art language we can guess that Button #2 is a sort of leap ability, Button #3 is a lunge ability, and Button #4 is some sort of war stomp — which is usually a stun.

Moving on to the next scene in the new gameplay video, we see the Demon Hunter. In this image you can see the Demon Hunter channeling Strafe (as seen in the long bar (bottom-center). It tells you that the Strafe animation ends when the bar is fully empty. The Strafe button also gets a circular alert how long before the channeling animation ends.

There are three icons below the Hero’s portrait. He has 10 stacks of running speed it seems, and the other two could be buffs of some kind. It is unknown if debuffs are also listed here.

Another observation is the dagger icon at the left side of the Hero’s portrait. What does it mean? The PLUS sign is seen here with two people which makes me think it is a LFG tool.

The mob the Demon Hunter is targetting is curiously level 60. That is 15 levels above the player. It is marked with a horned-skull which could mean it is an elite mob.

The mini-map shows the location name, but there is a skull to the left of the name. Is this some sort of dungeon icon?

While the Demon Hunter is strafing… you can’t cast other abilities — those are greyed out and have a diagonal line across the button — and if you look carefully, you can’t drink a Health Potion either while the Strafe animation is channeled.

Next in the gameplay video is the Wizard. Here we see another UI element. The quest bar is located at the top-left, below the Hero’s portrait and health bar.

That quest bar says: Kill King Fashir. The mini-map says Tomb of Fashir — which was mentioned during the BlizzCon 2018 panel (read the transcript).

I am intrigued that the Wizard has a fifth button.

My Smartphone OCR tells me that this open-scroll icon below the Hero’s portrait and health bar says: “Activity Log. Check out today’s activities with high rewards.”

The looking-glass icon on the bottom-left is the icon that appears when you hover your finger above the Pile of Skeletons. That’s what the chinese words say there.

The monster the Barbarian is targetting is named Scavenger. The mini-map says he is located in the Bilefen Island (according to Wyatt Cheng, the southern tip of Khanduras).

Next scene showed the Necromancer in action, very briefly. He also has 5 ability buttons.

The buff icons show two stacks. I am assumming here that the two stacks is the two skeleton minions. As of the time this article was posted, none of the Necromancer and Crusader abilities have been revealed, but here we can see the ability icons.

In this scene, the Necromancer is fighting a level 52 humanoid mob. That is 7 levels above him. The mini-map shows two blue icons flashing red. I am going to assume here that these are elite mobs nearby.

My Smartphone OCR says the mob targetted by the Necromancer is a Zakarum Soldier.

The chinese white text above the minion means the Skeleton parried the enemy.

The mini-map says Tamoe Mountains.

Below the mini-map is a new UI element not seen before. The OCR isn’t clear what it means.

Speculation: I recall watching that blue bar grow as minions died. Could this new UI element be a preview of a Greater Rift where a special bar tells you when the Greater Rift Lord is going to spawn?

After the new class animations, this image says: New Story. New Area. New Dungeon.

More verticality mechanics. This time an elevator.

The best way I can understand the OCR here is: Massive Multiplayer Mobile Online Game.

During this boss encounter, we can see minions spawning to allow players a source of Health Globes. The boss channels an ability later that knocks back all players in front at good distance.

The next scene is revealing. While all sights are on the enigmatic hand coming from the top — you might have missed a new yellow-orange potion next to the Health Potion that stacks up to 100.

Better yet, we have a quick view at a new UI element. It is unknown if this is a chat window or if it is a in-game boss dialogue window. There is a gear icon at the bottom-right corner of this black transparent window and a mic icon. Voice chat? Or a in-game dialogue audio toggle on/off? I guess we will find out soon.

Now, as the boss teleports into the room we see that this guy looks a heck of a lot like the big outdoor monster from Diablo 4. He is level 46 like the player, but it has a giant skull which means deadly. As the boss rushes in, it hits the player by 2062 damage, knocking a fifth of the player’s health bar.

The gameplay video ends with a surprise appearance of no other than Baal !!!

CHINAJOY 2020

Someone posted a video of the construction of the Blizzard/NetEase booth in ChinaJoy.

The ChinaJoy 2020 schedule was shared by SnowTyrant in the Diablo Immortal Discord. According to yIntuition who translated for me, Diablo Immortal doesn’t appear anywhere.

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BlizzCon 2019 Panel Transcripts