Diablo Immortal game director Wyatt Cheng has been on a foreign interview spree to promote the game overseas. The first interview was held in China on February 24.

Six weeks later — Today, April 5, the German gaming website MeinMMO posted the first interview of a 2-part interview, and it looks promising.

  • The story campaign lasts about 10 hours if they removed the Level requirements to resume the story in certain zones. In reality, it took me 27 hours in Beta to reach level 55. The game will ship with a cap of Level 60, and there was one zone missing in Beta (located in the Burning Hells).
  • Diablo Immortal is the biggest and most ambitious Diablo game yet.
  • There are story-driven side quests (These are known to us as Blue Quests; but there are also 30-minute questlines such as the one from Valla and Josen which I experienced in Beta; and 2-week events like the Dawn of Damnation).
  • Diablo Immortal has a much richer end-game than Diablo III (bold words there)
  • Beyond English and a few languages voice over, the team has decided to launch Diablo Immortal with foreign subtitles only. So no German voice over. Only German subtitles. However, the interview says foreign voice overs are planned later post-launch. This signals to me that Blizzard wants to launch the game quickly.

MeinMMO says they will publish the second-part of the interview tomorrow Wednesday, where Wyatt Cheng discusses what the team has been developing since Beta ended; social systems; PvE and PvP balance; and Guild systems.

Thanks DeTe and Varlaha for the heads up.

The second part of the interview is now available:

  • Wyatt Cheng says he thinks they are going to make the First Half of 2022 target.
  • Currently, they are implementing Beta feedback concerning the Paragon system.
  • Tuning the strength of Set Items.
  • Working on the Social system.
  • Beta allowed the team to learn how players behave with social interactions, how many friends people made in-game (Friends list), how many joined Clans, Such activities should be worthwhile and the team is adapting to that.
  • Social interaction should be easier at launch.
  • Biggest feature change they are making is the Cycle of Strife.
  • 300 players can join the Immortals group, and only them have access to activities such as the 48-player raid: Kion’s Ordeal.
  • Shadows have the opportunity to challenge the Immortals once a week to claim the Immortals title.
  • In Beta, you had to join the Shadows, then join a Dark House. If the Shadows overthrone the Immortals, the Dark Houses disbanded — some into Adventurers or Immortals. Then the cycle started from scratch. The developers got rid of this system of finding groups again. Now the system uses the Clans. The whole clan starts as an adventurer and together can join the Shadows. If you win, the whole clan becomes The Immortals.
  • Anyone can participate in Battlegrounds and influence the outcome of the battle, regardless of build or skill level.
  • It is not intended for a specific Immortals to reign forever, therefore the Shadows gain 5% more damage in PvP. After a few weeks, that bonus can become so strong that eventually the Immortals are going to be overthrown.
  • A player cannot become an Immortal if the were in the previous Immortals cycle. This allows new players to be invited to join the Immortals.
  • Warbands is for groups of up to 8 close friends to focus on specific game features — especially, those players who are not interested in joining the Shadows or Immortals. Warbands can choose not to participate in the Cycle of Strife.
  • If you choose to, you can join the Shadows, complete Contracts and other activities to get the Shadows buff at the end of the cycle without ever getting into PvP.

The developers responded to a question concerning minimum system requirements to play Diablo Immortal.

iOS
– iPhone 6s and above
– iOS 11 and above

Android
– Android 5.0 and above

CPU: SDM450 Snapdragon 450 / Exynos 7884 and above
GPU: Adreno 506 / Mali-G71 MP2 and above
RAM: 2GB and above

Warning: This is a about expected, but not yet final specs, as the game is still being optimized.

You can find the second interview here (Google Translate: English) or the original in German here.

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