Diablo Immortal is available for iOS, Android and PC (via open beta), and is already garnering backlash for its pay-to-win mechanics. Despite having a Metascore of “79” from 12 critics’ reviews on iOS, the user score on Metacritic is a paltry “0.6” from 1466 ratings and rising.
In terms of low user review scores, this is Blizzard’s third-lowest yet. Warcraft 3: Reforged is at “0.6” from a whopping 30,923 ratings. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic is at “0.5” out of 367 ratings. Reasons behind the backlash include gacha mechanics, excessive grinding (which is mitigated by paying), tons of microtransactions, and much more.
It’s especially worse in the endgame where players need Legendary Crests to obtain 5-star Legendary Gems from Elder Rifts. The drop rate is very low but for every 50 Legendary Crests spent, you get a guaranteed 5-star Legendary Gem as pity. Free-to-play players are capped on the number of Legendary Crests earned each month, so your only option is to pay real money to upgrade. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg – reports indicate that you’d need to possibly spend up to $110,000 for a fully upgraded character.
We’ll see how Blizzard Entertainment responds to these controversies in the coming days so stay tuned.
