The Diablo Immortal controversy continues, it seems. Prior to its release, Diablo Immortal was banned in Belgium and The Netherlands for its inclusion of loot boxes and since then, the game has gone on to receive the lowest user score in Metacritic history.
Fans have slated Diablo Immortal’s use of microtransactions as the game largely blocks progression behind a paywall, and it could cost you £88,000 to fully upgrade your character. That being said, Diablo Immortal has managed to rake in $24 million during its first two weeks of release. This week, the game was finally scheduled to release in China but that’s now no longer the case.
Revealed at the Xbox and Bethesda showcase, take a look at the latest trailer for Diablo 4.
Diablo Immortal should’ve been released in China by now, but this was recently delayed after a controversial post was put out on the game’s official Weibo account - which is essentially the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.
The post seemingly appeared to criticise China’s president Xi Jinping. As translated by The Financial Times, the post read, “Why hasn’t the bear stepped down?” If you’re confused, Xi Jinping has previously been compared to Winnie the Pooh causing China to censor content containing the famous bear.
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The Financial Times went on to say that the Weibo account was subsequently banned although officially, this debacle hasn’t been given as the reason behind Diablo Immortal’s postponement. Instead, Blizzard have said the delay is to give developers time to make “a number of optimisation adjustments to the game”.
Seeing as the game hasn’t suffered performance issues in other territories, this seems like a strange reason. Either way, there’s no news on when Diablo Immortal’s China release is replanned for - if it’s coming at all.
Topics: Diablo, Blizzard Entertainment