Diablo Immortal’s The release in China was pushed back, just days before it was released. It is official that the development team needs more time to optimize the game, but the delay comes after Blizzard banned Blizzard’s Chinese social media account.
Last weekend, a press release on Blizzard China website explains that the Diablo Immortal development team needs to make several optimization tweaks, including support for more device types, improved display quality, and other performance and network improvements. No new release date has been provided, only that Diablo Immortal will not release on June 23.
NetEase, the Chinese game giant and co-developer of Diablo Immortal, suffered a 10% drop in its stock value the morning after the delay announcement, as reported by Cointelegraph. South China Morning Post.
While the extra development work is the official reason for the delay from NetEase and Blizzard, it still doesn’t help but lead some to speculate that the recent social media ban is the real reason behind the plans. Release has changed. Recently, Blizzard’s official Weibo account (China’s most famous social network) for Diablo Immortal is said to have posted related to Winnie the Pooh. After the post, the Weibo account was banned for “violating relevant laws and regulations”, according to SCMP.
The fictional bear is often used as a method to criticize China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and is also frequently met with interference. Recent examples include the video game Devotion, which is taken from Steam after discovering the Winnie the Pooh meme in the game.
The Financial Times reported that NetEase stock also fell following the backlash over Winnie the Pooh’s post, but it’s currently unknown if the social media ban is the reason for Diablo Immortal’s delay in China. are not.
This isn’t the first time Diablo Immortal has found himself in hot water; even though earn $24 million from microtransactions since the main launch, very unhappy player with Blizzard’s monetization approach. And while the game dragged reasonable assessmentDiablo Immortal has faced backlash since the day it was announced back in 2018.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s News and Features Editor in the UK.
