The announcement of mobile Diablo Immortal during BlizzCon 2018 did not go smoothly. Frustrated fans who expected something more about Blizzard’s promises went on to share their negative emotions on the official Blizzard forums (including other titles, such as WoW) and to dislike the cinematic announcement video of the game.
Polygon had an interview with executive producer and Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham and production director Dan Elggren about the response the company has received to Diablo Immortal.
“We have said that we have multiple Diablo teams working on multiple Diablo projects and that remains true, even after releasing [Diablo 3 for Nintendo] Switch and announcing Diablo: Immortal,” Adham said. “We still have multiple Diablo teams working on multiple unannounced Diablo projects. Diablo is a tentpole franchise for us. And it always will be. We love it. We hope our fans understand what we’re saying when we say that.”
They went on to say that the world is evolving, and there is a large demographic that uses mobile devices as their main gaming platform, especially the younger generation. It is Blizzard’s plan to weave the mobile gaming into their audience, that currently is mostly centered around PCs and consoles.
In another interview with Digital Trends, Allen Adham commented that Blizzard has not forgotten about the core Diablo fans. He also said that it was Hearthstone and its mobile port that opened Blizzard’s eyes to broader opportunity.
I can say, without getting overly specific, that we have big plans for the mobile space. It’s a big initiative for us across Blizzard, and you can expect to see more mobile titles from us spanning all of our IPs at some point in the future.