Diablo Immortal’s “Pay To Win” Mechanics Are Affecting The Game’s Metacritic Scores

Activision Blizzard still can’t catch a break.

Even if its mobile RPG Diablo Immortal is fun to play from the get-go -with great controls and simple-yet-satisfying loot-hunting action mechanics- it’s still facing public backlash during its launch week. The game’s negative reviews/review-bombing on Metacritic makes this the third-worst scored game in Blizzard history; this is next to WarCraft 3 and World of WarCraft Classic: Burning Crusade Classic.

This is due to the game’s heavy focus on microtransactions. This isn’t helped out by the fact that a recent analysis from Bellular News states that Diablo Immortal can cost players up to US$110,000 to fully upgrade a character via transactions. Remember when we said in an earlier guide that you can only get Legendary Gems from Legendary Crests (ie: the game’s loot boxes)? That’s where the money is going: to power up the Crests for better luck and rates. There are also other factors like resonating boards that also increase the cost you need to fully upgrade one character.

Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom for the mobile RPG: the game has an Apple App Store and Google Play rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on average. The reviews on those pages are all about the game’s earlier and mid-game portions, with negative comments mostly on the endgame and microtransactions feeling more necessary at that portion. Folks who covered Diablo Immortal on a deeper level like YouTuber Raxxanterax talked about how a “whale” player (ones who spend a lot on a gacha game) easily destroyed his team.