Diablo Immortal impressions: A good smartphone game saddled with F2P nonsense

Enlarge / Welcome to hell. By that, we mostly mean Diablo Immortal's setting, but that sentence could also describe the figurative distaste we have for the new game's economic choices. (credit: Activision Blizzard)

The best thing about Diablo Immortal is that it is a fun, professionally crafted action-RPG befitting the Diablo name. The new Activision Blizzard game, launching on iOS and Android later on Wednesday and Windows PCs on Thursday, immediately impresses as one of the better smartphone-first action-RPG games on the market. And my 10 hours in its universe have thus far allayed my previous fears about its production values.

The worst thing about Diablo Immortal is its economy. My pre-release testing of the final game was regularly marked with menus and in-game characters alike selling me new types of "orbs," "stones," gold, and other confusing paths to microtransactions. At best, the game can be enjoyed despite this nonsense.

But the bean counters at Activision Blizzard aren't willing to offer a one-time purchase in Diablo Immortal for fair, nag-free adventuring. (Worse, as of press time, the game publisher appears to double down on a particular 2012 fiasco.) That's doubly tragic when the game is otherwise a fun, smartphone-friendly option for one more dungeon run—which leaves me stuck between recommending a perfectly fine smartphone adventure and warning about its ickiest caveats.