Diablo 4 Will Have “Optional Cosmetics” And ” Optional Expansion Passes”, Or So Blizzard and Developers Say

So, Diablo 4 is not going to be anything like Diablo Immortal. It will not have a greedy, self-serving monetization campaign attached to every aspect of the game. That is what Blizzard’s Senior Vice President and GM for the Diablo franchise Rod Fergusson has said. And I want to believe him, though he may be one of the primary culprits for the “pay-to-win” debacle that is Diablo Immortal.

Only coming out twelve days ago, Diablo Immortal has already caused a tremendous stir in the gaming world. Despite being free-to-play, TweakTown, Belluar News, and Rock Paper Shogun showed how this game is essentially a pseudo gambling game. And if that is the case for Diablo 4, Blizzard and the game itself are in an almighty amount of trouble already.

In Diablo Immortal, you can either put hours upon hours into the game legitimately to level up through raids, bounties, and contracts until you reach level 40-50ish (which in my case was level 42), where it then becomes almost impossible to level up and earn good rewards legitimately. Or you can pay for progression.

Diablo Immortal
(Screenshot: Diablo Immortal Cinematic Trailer)

And you will have to pay a lot. Due to the game being free-to-play, everything else costs an arm and a leg. The Battle Pass can either cost you $4.99/month or $14.99/month depending on what ranking you choose. That is between $60 to $180 per year.

And the eternal orbs, the in-game monetary system, pricing is just as bad. It starts with $0.99 for 60 orbs, $4.99 for 350 orbs, $9.99 for 630 orbs, $24.99 for 1,650 orbs, $49.99 for 3,450 orbs, and $99.99 for 7,200 orbs. Yeah, it’s a lot.

And you use these orbs to buy rare and legendary crests (1 crest for 160 orbs, 10 crests for 1600 orbs), though I will be focusing on the legendary crests as this is where the true gambling aspect comes in. These legendary crests are the pinnacle of what you can purchase through the Diablo Immortal store as it is the “loot box” with the best loot in it. What is in these crests? Legendary gems (yeah, I know, Blizzard was not very creative when coming up with these names).

These legendary gems can exponentially increase your character’s class build and upgrade your character’s stats, which makes your character far more competitive against other players. Now, each legendary gem is not made the same as there are 1-star cap gems, 2-star cap gems, and 5-star cap gems, and each gem is ranked either 1-star, 2-star, or 5-star. A 5-star, 5-star cap legendary gem are the best.

Where the gambling comes in is that each legendary crest DOES guarantee the player with a legendary gem but DOES NOT guarantee the player the quality of gem. So, each person will need to continually purchase a legendary crest and/or a legendary crest package until they get ten legendary gems, which is the maximum slots allocated per character class.

If you wish to see the breakdown of percentages for how likely it is to get a 5-star, 5-star capped legendary gem or anything else Immortal pricing/montization related, go see Belluar News, Rock Paper Shogun and TweakTown’s respective articles/videos about this topic.

They have way more detail and knowledge about this subject than I do. Furthermore, in Rock Paper Shogun’s article, they predicted that it could cost a player to fully maximize your character with10, 5-star, 5-star capped legendary gems close to $51,000. THAT IS INSANE!

What struck me even more was the drop rate for a 5-star, 5-star capped legendary gem was 0.05%. Not even a tenth of one percent chance you will get the best gem in the game. You would have to purchase 2000 legendary crests (or 200 10-pack legendary crests) to get the best gem in the game just once. That is just plain gambling on a kid/young adult centric game. And it is just plain wrong and predator from a major gaming studio. Did they learn nothing from EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2?

Diablo IV
(Screenshot: Diablo IV Announce Cinematic)

Nevertheless, going back to Diablo 4, Rod Fergusson promised us through his tweet that Diablo 4 will be a fully priced, non-play-to-win game at launch. I believe him on that. He also said that the game will have “optional cosmetics” and “optional expansion passes”. That is where I am skeptical with his promises.

Every gaming studio must have seen the utter calamity of issues “loot boxes” and “pay-to-play” transactions caused EA with their Star Wars: Battlefront 2 launch in 2017. The game never truly recovered from the negative publicity that came its way, even after a good deal of the issues were resolved over time.

The same will happen to Diablo Immortal. Sure, the game is fun and can be very enjoyable, but having to spend $51,000 on a game is not.

Blizzard should have known that. And yet, they still released Immortal in the state it’s in. And with Rod Fergusson, who was hired on as Senior Vice President and GM for the Diablo franchise in 2020, it almost goes without saying that he must have had SOMETHING to do with Immortal’s “pay-to-play” set-up.

His word should not be taken without some skepticism when it comes to Diablo 4, as is the case for every Blizzard executive in charge of Diablo Immortal.

Are at launch Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Diablo Immortal entirely different types of games? Yes. Do they share some of the same “predatory” aspects with one another? Most definitely. Does this mean that Diablo 4 is destined for “loot box” misery? No, not at all. Blizzard has seen the vast amounts of criticism thrown their way and would be silly to not take note.

I’m sure they will be making adjustments to the type of content included in the “optional cosmetics” and “optional expansion passes” before its 2023 launch, so that must be seen as a positive. Still, if key aspects of the game are locked behind ludicrous paywalls in Diablo 4, then Blizzard will have a “Battlefront 2 disaster” on its hands.

Images Source: Featured Image: (Screenshot) (Diablo Immortal Cinematic Trailer – YouTube)