Diablo Immortal Is Still a Mess, but at Least Diablo 3 Is Getting Something Awesome
Yes, it's me, the guy who's still playing Diablo Immortal, still logging in every day to slog through some daily tasks, get a couple paragon levels, and see if anything has improved. And so far, not so good.
For those keeping track, it's now been over a month since I finished my review of Diablo Immortal, but somehow the game has kept its hooks in me. Okay, the somehow isn't that mysterious: It's that, awful monetization aside, the game feels really good to play and that Diablo loop of constant loop upgrades is still addictive.
Diablo Immortal's second season began last week, and so far it is the epitome of underwhelming. The second season's battle pass is virtually identical to that of the first season, and the only new content that's been added to the game is a new raid boss, Vitaath the Shivering Death. Of course, to even challenge Vitaath you need a combat rating of nearly 3,000.
Now admittedly, I'm not the most hardcore player and also haven't spent very much money on this game, but after a month of playing every day, I'm only just inching over a combat rating of 1,000, and each new point gained feels exponentially more difficult. In other words, it could be months before I even get a glimpse of this new, ice-based demonic foe.
There's still time for Blizzard to make Diablo Immortal Season 2 a little more memorable, of course. There's a new limited time in-game event that will be running from July 15 to July 18—let's just hope it offers some good rewards—and Blizzard has promised that a more meaty content patch will be discussed (if not launched) "later this month." We'll see, I guess.
It's not all bad news in the world of Diablo, though. Last week also saw the announcement of Diablo 3's Season 27, a season that may end up being the last or second-to-last before next year's highly anticipated launch of Diablo 4. To Blizzard's credit, the Diablo 3 team isn't resting on its laurels, as it has revealed several extremely cool features to be added to the game in Season 27.
Most interesting among these features is the addition of a new item called Angelic Crucibles. Embracing a heavenly theme, Angelic Crucibles can be consumed to "sanctify" a piece of legendary gear. The sanctified gear is reforged to have the absolute best possible stats that could be rolled for it, plus it maintains its special legendary ability, plus it gets one of three new powers unique to each class added to it at random.
You know how in Diablo Immortal one of the main complaints from the player base is that it's not only an endless time sink but also an endless money sink to keep pushing for the perfect piece of gear? Diablo 3's Angelic Crucibles are like the extreme opposite of that, turning the hunt for that best possible upgrade an inevitability rather than a slog.
There are restrictions, of course. While players can use Angelic Crucibles to sanctify as many items as they want, only one sanctified piece of gear can be equipped at any one time. And while the three new powers for each class sound great—one of the wizard power-ups makes the Magic Missile ability fire twenty missiles at once—it is a little bit of a bummer that the power is assigned at random, since players are sure to discover that each class has an ideal choice among the three.
Still, however Angelic Crucibles turn out, it's fantastic to see Blizzard still supporting Diablo 3 with ambitious new systems nearly a decade out from release, not to mention less than a year to the launch of its successor. If I was a smarter man, I'd delete Diablo Immortal from my phone and start getting ready for the new Diablo 3 season, which looks set to begin sometime in August.
Readers, I am not a smart man. Stay tuned for more Diablo Immortal updates to come.
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