It's been a while since Blizzard spoke about Diablo Immortal. The upcoming mobile game announced at BlizzCon 2018 amidst serious fan disappointment is still on its way and chances are we'll hear more concrete details in the coming months.
Meanwhile, though, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack defended the company's right to make a game that won't necessarily appeal to every traditional Blizzard fan or every gamer for that matter. Here's the quote from an interview published recently by GamesBeat:
I don’t think it’s a requirement that we try to make every game work and speak to every single player. If you’re not a mobile gamer — our goal is to get you to try it and give it a chance, but every game is not going to be for every person. The mobile device is its own platform, similar to PC, similar to console. If you think about the different games you have on console, there’s a bit of a different flavor to a lot of games you have on console than you have with hardcore PC games. It’s going to be different. It’s going to be a good, authentic experience for the Blizzard games we bring to that platform, but it’s not trying to replicate the PC experience.
Diablo Immortal has been co-developed with NetEase due to their expertise with mobile games. As reported by Bloomberg, NetEase CFO Yang Zhaoxuan said in late February that the game is basically ready to enter the market.
From a co-developer’s perspective, the game development is pretty much ready. As to the exact launch timetable, I would encourage the market to direct their questions directly to Activision Blizzard.
It stands to reason that Blizzard is trying to apply their signature polish in order to make sure Diablo Immortal has the kind of quality the company has been known for. We'll surely know more at BlizzCon 2019 but until then, stay tuned for any further updates.