For the naysayers, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment Allen Adham did tease Diablo IV during the BlizzCon Press Conference. He didn’t say the words, but if an image is worth a thousand words, this smirky smile of joy painted across Allen and Wyatt’s faces confirms it.

That smile came about at the exact moment Allen said the underlined text within this sentence: “For die-hard PC fans, we will say though, we still have multiple Diablo teams working on Multiple unannounced Diablo projects. So we haven’t forgotten about them. The future is bright. Stay tuned.

 

In addition, Allen Adham basically revealed there is at least a Warcraft mobile game in development. At most, a Warcraft mobile game and a StarCraft or Overwatch mobile game — when he said:

“we have many of our best developers now working on new mobile titles across all of our IPs.”

This is my transcript from what is said during the press conference:

Wyatt: Right now we focus on the moment-to-moment gameplay. We don’t currently have any autoplay, but we are looking to develop a game and see what feels right to the game.

Once we get the moment-to-moment down and right for all the skills, and all the classes, and all the content and items, we will look at how things are going in the development, and make a decision.

I love the Witch Doctor. I was one of the designers on the Witch Doctor in Diablo III. There are actually a lot of classes that I love from all the Diablo games. I love the Amazon, the Assassin, the Druid; and for Diablo Immortal we chose the six classes to make sure that we can represent a variety of playstyles that are great in the Diablo game; and since this is a live game that we will be able to have content updates for over time, we do hope to be able to add additional classes in the future.

Allen: In terms of Blizzard’s approach to mobile gaming, many of us over the last few years have shifted from playing primarily desktop to playing many hours on mobile; and we have many of our best developers now working on new mobile titles across all of our IPs.

Some of them are with external partners, like Diablo Immortal. Many of them are being developed internally only; and we will have information to share on those in the future.

I will say also that we have more new products in development today at Blizzard than we have ever had in our history; and our future is very bright.

As I understand the question, if it is about the maturity of the content, the Diablo Immortal for the mobile device is being designed so that everybody can play from all ages; and so where some of the PC products are Mature rated, our goal is that this will not be Mature rated.

The mobile device is different in some important ways than the PC and Console. Convergence, I believe, is happening and the level of fidelity on the mobile device is coming very close to the kind of games we can see on the PC and Console.

Although there are some important differences in play actions and play patterns, and control mechanics, but one of the real and the main reasons that we are bringing Diablo Immortal to phones is that it gives us the opportunity to introduce Diablo to a much broader audience around the world that play games, now many of them, primarily on their phones; and in North America, a younger audience that play games (many of them) primarily on their phones.

So Netease, for almost 10 years, has been a partner with Blizzard in China, and a very excellent partner in China. NetEase is one of the best developers of mobile action RPGs in China; and this project came together very organicly through conversations with the two companies; and it is a true joint-venture.

We have developers here in the West, and developers in China working on this game. The goal to make an mobile Action RPG that is very true and authenticly Diablo in a way that can be very successful in the East and in the West.

The Action RPG genre really, for us, has been around now for in one form or another almost 30 years; and so when we view the core game loop of killing creatures, pilling loot, progressing your character to become stronger and continue, we think that this type of game is timeless on Diablo Immortal in particular.

The reason to bring Diablo to the mobile game now is that the fidelity of the mobile phones is now getting to the level that is almost equivalent to Consoles and PCs.

So we believe we can make a beautiful experience on phones that really defines the genre. We have may ideas on how to advance this genre on Mobile Action RPGs, and you will see more over the coming time as we release more details.

Wyatt: From my point of view, I think we have a ton of players who are super passionate about Diablo, and for some of them, what we announced this BlizzCon isn’t what they were expecting; but we are super proud of it; but I think it that because it wasn’t what you were expecting, you might be a bit skeptical; and I think that what we see is some people that are skeptical, and I think skepticism is actually a very healthy mindset.

It demonstrates intellectual curiosity; but I think that Diablo Immortal is an excellent game, and those who have had the chance to play it here on the showfloor– we have had many people who have said: “I was skeptical, but now I put it on my hands, and it is awesome.”

Allen: For almost 3 decades, Blizzard has made many games. Different game types. Different IPs across many different platforms. So we are always pushing ourselves to innovate, and to try new things; and this is just one new thing in a long history of making new things.

For die-hard PC fans, we will say though, we still have multiple Diablo teams working on Multiple unannounced Diablo projects. So we haven’t forgotten about them. The future is bright. Stay tuned.

 

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BlizzCon 2019 Panel Transcripts