Pre-order Diablo Immortal (but don’t hold your breath)

Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal, an online hack-and-slash game in the Diablo universe designed for mobile, years ago. People were initially disappointed, hoping for Diablo IV rather than a mobile game, but the backlash has mostly died down, andI’m sure fans of the genre in general, and Diablo in particular, are looking forward to this installment.

Well, you’ll be happy to know that you can pre-order Diablo Immortal on the App Store today. The question is, why should you?

Diablo Immortal is a free-to-play game, as many MMOs are across all platforms. That means that your pre-order is more about netting some sort of in-game item, and less about getting a specific version of the game. Pre-orders for free games are a bit silly, I think, but they’re obviously used as a notification method more than anything. A “notify me” feature on the App Store page would be more true to form, but sure, I get it.

As for the actual game, you won’t be playing it anytime soon. The launch date is the end of June, the 30th to be precise. That’s not “Coming Soon”, as the App Store page says, in my book, but, again, fine. It’s also a bit unclear what kind of experience we’ll actually get for free, and how much of a pay-to-win game Diablo Immortal will turn out to be. We’ll find out this summer. For now, check out the official site, and bash that pre-order button if this is something that interests you.