Over the past weekend, I had the opportunity to explore the Shattered Sanctuary patch that will go live in Diablo Immortal on December 13th. I focused on exploring the new World’s Crown zone and completing the new storyline, culminating in an epic fight with Diablo. There are also some new Helliquary bosses and a new boosted dungeon mode called challenge dungeons, but for this preview, I wanted to focus on the story and the new Diablo fight since those are the main courses for this update.
World’s Crown and Shattered Sanctuary
I enjoyed the new storyline a lot. Early on and throughout, there were appearances from many NPCs that we’ve encountered throughout Diablo Immortal’s story, and that was an unexpected touchpoint here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this story felt like a culmination of all the storylines we’ve had so far, similar to what we usually get right before a game is sunsetted. Every step through the new story was enjoyable and interesting. Although most of it proceeds as I would have expected, there’s one returning character I wasn’t expecting. I won’t spoil it, but the storyline with them was fascinating.
The World’s Crown zone is described as the largest in Diablo Immortal, and from what I saw, it does seem to be the case. Although, at first, it seemed a bit smaller than I expected. This is likely because I was focusing on the storyline, and when I first arrived, it didn’t seem as though I had much freedom to roam. This was partially due to me not paying attention to where I was going and wandering into the story areas. There’s also a section of the map that didn’t seem as if it was available until a particular story moment happened. It makes sense within that context, but if you prefer to explore before progressing the story, you may be frustrated.
Another thing about World’s Crown — it is jampacked with all kinds of demons and monsters to fight. Considering this is where the cult brings Diablo back, that makes sense, but I can't overstate how many monsters there are everywhere. In most of the other zones in Diablo Immortal, there usually are relatively large sections I can run across without running into any hostile creatures. I could barely take two steps in World's Crown without being in another fight. Some of this might be due to being in a closed environment with few other players, but I hope that isn’t the case. I didn’t find the constant fighting a problem, and I enjoyed it. Additionally, one of my biggest pet peeves of being in a story dialogue and having some random monster interrupting didn’t happen. So, there were many monsters to kill, and I didn’t have to restart conversations constantly — both are huge wins in my book.
Diablo, Lord of Terror
An important thing to know here is for this preview, I was given access to a max-level Barbarian with good gear. I haven’t played a Barbarian since Diablo 3 and didn’t play that character for long. It’s an understatement to say I am very rusty when it comes to Barbarians, and I have no idea how they work in Diablo Immortal. This unfamiliarity is undoubtedly a contributing factor to some of the issues I ran into while fighting Diablo. That said, some of my issues are definitely larger than that.
When I first fought Diablo, I was initially slightly disappointed because it seemed like yet another fight where I fought on a platform, and only the boss’s torso was part of the fight. I was expecting this huge, crazy fight against Diablo, and it felt like any other boss. However, I quickly realized that was just the first phase of the battle. After the first phase, I was taken through a series of vignettes depicting what would happen to the world if Diablo was victorious, and I only had Tyrel’s voice to help guide me through those. However, they were pretty linear, so his guidance felt more like further developing the story rather than needed guidance.
In the second phase, I ran into most of my issues with the fight. Diablo shows up in his full form in this phase, and there’s a lot more mechanics, which was excellent on both counts. He has three healthbars to get through, which is also no big deal. My issue is he had so much health in each bar that the fight felt like it went on forever. In actuality, it took me 20 minutes to complete this phase. As I mentioned, some of that was due to my unfamiliarity with Barbarian and not maximizing ability synergies. Even so, it felt excessive. I also probably should have increased the world tier because I could ignore the mechanics during this phase, and it didn’t seem to matter. At one point, I played one-handed, holding the primary attack because the fight went on so long that I was almost late for a stream I needed to do. But wait, there’s more.
Once I cleared the second phase, I discovered a third phase after that—three more health bars to go through. The first time, I just closed Diablo Immortal at this point because, as I mentioned, I was running late for a commitment. When I returned to it, I made sure I had enough time for this long fight. I enjoyed this phase even though it was just as long as the second, and that is down to knowing how much time it would take going in. I also needed to pay attention to the mechanics, making this phase more enjoyable overall. I would have been quite happy with the Diablo encounter if the fight had been in the first section and this third phase.
Players who play Diablo Immortal on the PC or, in general, play for longer sessions will likely have less of an issue with how long this encounter is. I play exclusively on my phone, and most of the time, I play for only 15-20 minutes at a time. All of that played into my annoyance with the amount of time the fight took. I’ve also never believed that the amount of time a fight takes to execute has much of a bearing on how epic it feels. I am looking forward to playing on my crusader, and hopefully, the majority of my issue is that I am a very bad Barbarian.
Wrap Up
Overall, I had a ton of fun with this update. As I mentioned, the story is well done and should feel like a good culmination. I feel pretty mixed about the Diablo fight overall, but I strongly suspect a lot of that is related to constraints with trying something out in a preview environment. Additionally, the challenge dungeons sound like they will offer an interesting twist on dungeons, and I am sad I didn’t have the time to dig into those. Shattered Sanctuary will go live in Diablo Immortal on Thursday, December 13th.
