The release of Diablo Immortal, the first new Diablo game in ten years, is approaching – but that wasn’t always going to be the case, as the Diablo Immortal PC release was only recently announced. According to a new Blizzard interview, the PC version was really designed first “to make it for mobile.”
The Diablo mobile game was announced all the way back in 2015 to a less than enthusiastic response, mostly because everyone was waiting on the reveal of Diablo IV. With the Diablo Immortal release date on June 2 so close we can touch it, excitement is far higher – especially thanks to the same-time release of a Diablo Immortal PC beta too.
While the PC release wasn’t initially on the cards, a new interview at Wowhead with Diablo franchise head Rod Fergusson reveals that the PC version always existed. “The mission of Diablo Immortal was to bring the Diablo experience to mobile,” Fergusson explains but admits “we built it on PC in order to make it for mobile.”
“We were developing [Diablo Immortal] on the PC,” he adds, “so it wasn’t the first time we had ever seen it on PC.” However, as the mobile version was the primary planned release, Blizzard had to make sure that it was “locked down before we started to think about other platforms.”
As for why a PC release was considered at all, the Diablo head explains that it’s about “maximizing accessibility to the game.” Content creators apparently had a hand in the decision too, as several told Blizzard that they would need to emulate Diablo Immortal in order to play it. “Obviously that’s not ideal,” Fergusson says.
Regarding the PC version as only being a beta release, Fergusson explains that Blizzard still has “a lot to learn for the PC version, because we didn’t have the opportunity to test it at scale”. That probably explains why it has multiple control schemes on PC.
If you want to be sure your PC can run Blizzard’s latest RPG game, you can check out the Diablo Immortal system requirements at the link there.