I’m pretty sure I’ve played Diablo 3 More than any other game. I do the whole thing every 12 months or so, and every now and then when I want to listen to a lengthy podcast, I jump in—because it also happens to be a great podcast game.
Games like Action RPGs and Diablo aren’t exactly in short supply these days, but I find myself habitually returning to Diablo 3, especially when I’m done playing one of the new games. I don’t care if Path of Exile has deeper progression, Wolcen has better graphics, or any new ARPG has any other quality (or qualities) than Diablo 3 claims. Nothing I’ve ever played is as good as Diablo 3.
Since then diablo immortal When it was revealed, I had been naively thinking it was an extension to Diablo 3 – just an extension that happened to be on mobile. As I continued to ignore all signs to the contrary, my delusional anticipation remained firm. I’ve even accepted the fact that I’ll be playing Diablo on my phone, and I rarely want to play anything on my phone.
But then Blizzard said fuck it and decided to release it to PC. I no longer have to worry about setting up my iPad just right Or turn my phone into a tiny console.
No more bullshit – it’s mouse and keyboard time, baby! But we cannot have nice things.
I’ll graciously call Diablo Immortal on PC a “mobile port,” but it has to be one of the minimal efforts I’ve seen. The fact that it comes from Blizzard, a studio whose entire history has been built on making PC games, really puts things in perspective.
Diablo on PC doesn’t recognize the scroll wheel, you have to click and drag the window as you would with a touchscreen. By default it doesn’t assign any function to right click. It’s full of tips for mobile players, like “clicking” to do this or that. Its UI is scaled up to be readable on phone screens. Its assets are only designed for the limited processing power of mobile devices and don’t look good on a monitor or TV.
But what really bothers me is how badly this so-called “PC game” is controlled with a mouse and keyboard. Plugging in the controller didn’t solve my problem either, as it also defaults to the layout and handling used on the phone. Even after some tweaking, the user experience still shows that it’s designed for touch gestures. You can’t just rewire your brain to ignore the right stick when you want to scroll down a damn list.
This is what I don’t understand. Blizzard made one of the best-feeling, best-controlled ARPGs on PC with Diablo 3; Menu navigation is designed with solid controls. This is actually a problem solved on both ends.
However, Diablo Immortal pretends none of these exist. For a game called Diablo, the user experience is maddeningly bad. From Blizzard!
I’m not even going to get into the design of Diablo Immortal; it’s well-known territory at this point. As hard as it may be to believe, I’m even sadder that I’ve never played the game because it didn’t feel good to play.
This little experiment made me realize that I’ve never actually played a Diablo game on a controller. Diablo 3 on PC doesn’t officially support them, and since it made the jump, I’ve never found the point of buying games on consoles.
Having now experienced what it’s like to play Diablo on a controller, it makes sense. I wanted a proper game that was really designed for a controller, so I chose Diablo III: Eternal Collection on Xbox (three console generations later!). As of this writing, it’s on sale for under $20 and comes with a full package.
My God, everyone is right! I’m missing out on an action game that’s great for a controller, simply because I’ve never considered leaving the mouse and keyboard behind. Diablo 3 on consoles is everything I want from Immortal.
It’s designed to take advantage of controllers, and cleverly bypasses their inherent limitations compared to M&K. But its biggest triumph is in how it justifies the console experience. If you didn’t know Diablo’s long history on PC, you’d never think the game was designed for mouse and keyboard; features map well to keyboard, menus are easy to navigate, loot, equip and compare items Very simple, without losing the depth available on PC. Some concessions can make some situations awkward, like accidentally picking up an item when trying to attack a nearby enemy (due to both functions sharing the same button). But these cases are rare.
Blizzard’s decision to add scrolling — something never seen before on PC — sped up the pace of combat and better integrated its mechanics with the controllers. The first time I turned it on after installation, I played it for more than three hours.
Diablo 3 is an old enough game that it will run on just about anything, including powerful modern consoles. As far as I can tell, the game is locked to 4K on the Xbox Series X and its 60fps frame rate never drops.
I went back to immortality again to see if I could somehow recreate that control scheme, or change my mind, but it just refused. Maybe an update in a few months’ time will make M&K or the controller feel more natural, maybe its monetization will be less blatantly predatory. Until then, PC gamers with consoles will have a whole new world awaiting them with Diablo 3 on Xbox or PlayStation.
While we’re all waiting for Diablo 4 together, let’s not let the Immortal get the light.
