Diablo Immortal surprise-launches early on mobile

By Jesse Lennox June 1, 2022

Diablo Immortal has appeared on U.S. mobile storefronts ahead of the planned June 2 launch date.

Despite Activision Blizzard formally announcing the release date for Diablo Immortal as June 2, and even tweeting out a map of global release times, the game has already begun showing up to download in the U.S. This is only true for the mobile version of the game, and it currently only seems to be available in this one region so far.

After the surprise launch was discovered, Blizzard confirmed that this was intentional and that the PC version would launch, as previously planned, on June 2.

The release times tweet did state that players “may see it populate on servers even sooner,” however gave no indication that it could be a full day earlier than expected. A pinned comment on the Diablo Immortal official Discord server, on the other hand, did imply this would be the case. The comment, posted on May 28, states that “As we note in our blog iOS and Android players will start to see Diablo Immortal propagate on their respective stores on the morning of 6/1. We don’t exactly know who will see it first or in what order of those who will see it. We expect this to be fairly early in the morning that this process will start (Pacific Time).”

It isn’t often that game releases are pushed forward, even if it is only by just a day, so this is a welcome surprise for anyone looking forward to giving Diablo Immortal a shot. While this currently only applies to players in the U.S, we anticipate other regions will start seeing it appear over the course of the day as well, except for the Netherlands and Belgium where the game will not launch due to their laws against lootboxes.

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Tech News

Jesse Lennox loves writing, games, and complaining about not having time to write and play games. He knows the names of more…

Gaming

Tower of Fantasy beginner’s guide: 9 tips and tricks to get started

Two characters sitting on a grassy cliff.

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Between combat, exploration, puzzle-solving, and more, Tower of Fantasy has a lot to take in when first embarking on your new adventure. Depending on how much experience you have with other MMOs, or gacha games in particular, your experience coming to grips with this game will be heavily swayed. That doesn't mean players new to the genre shouldn't try out this hit new title, though, which is why we've come up with some essential tips and tricks that can help players of all skill levels get started with Tower of Fantasy.

Mobile

Diablo Immortal on the iPhone SE is held back by one thing, but it’s not the screen

Diablo Immortal on the iPhone SE (2022)

The iPhone SE (2022)’s small 4.7-inch screen must make it pretty bad for playing games like Diablo Immortal, right? After all, the game’s screen is busy most of the time, and when there's plenty going on, everything looks pretty small -- even on a big-screen phone like the Asus ROG Phone 6.

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Mobile

This $450 Android phone handles Diablo Immortal far better than you’d expect

Diablo Immortal on the Samsung Galaxy A53.

The $450 Samsung Galaxy A53 5G is one of our top recommendations if you want a reliable, attractive, and capable everyday smartphone at a reasonable price. But it's not a flagship device with the best processor or a dedicated gaming phone with extra buttons and a massive screen. So how does it cope with Diablo Immortal, one of the biggest mobile game releases of the year? That's what we wanted to find out.
The power within
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The screen is a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED one with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 2400 x 1080 pixel resolution, and an 800 nits peak brightness. It's covered in flat glass, and the 8.1mm thick, 189-gram plastic chassis means the phone doesn't feel too light or difficult to grip. Diablo Immortal is a massive install and takes up 9.12GB of space in its entirety — a large chunk of the A53's 128GB of internal storage. It's a good thing the Galaxy A53 has a MicroSD card slot because, with Diablo Immortal installed, you may end up needing it.