4 years after the Diablo Immortal backlash, Warcraft Arclight Rumble gets mostly neutral shrugs

Blizzard has revealed its new mobile game, Warcraft Arclight Rumble, and nearly four years after fans raged against the first appearance of Diablo Immortal, the tone of responses from hardcore fans is much more measured.

If you missed the announcement, Warcraft Arclight Rumble is effectively a Warcraft-themed take on Clash Royale. You and your opponent basically play tower defense against each other, sending units to take down the enemy base while defending your own stronghold.

“Yep, it’s a mobile game,” Reddit user echolog writes. That’s currently the top comment on Arclight Rumble’s announcement in the World of Warcraft subreddit, and it pretty much sets the tone for the community’s responses to the game across the board.

“I am clearly not the target audience for this,” user Rambo_One2 also writes on Reddit, “but I'll probably give it a download and try it out.”

There’s some skepticism about the free-to-play game’s monetization plans, which have not yet been revealed, but otherwise the community is responding to Arclight Rumble in much more measured tones than we saw with Diablo Immortal - which shows that Blizzard has probably learned a thing or two from that game’s infamous announcement.

Diablo Immortal was revealed at the opening ceremony for BlizzCon 2018. Seemingly intended as a big show stopping announcement, it did not play well before an audience of hardcore Blizzard fans who were hoping for a real, proper Diablo 4 - a game which would not be announced for another year.

This time, Blizzard made it incredibly clear that this would be a mobile game well ahead of the reveal stream, and word of a mobile Warcraft game had been kicking around for years.

Blizzard has lost a lot of its prestige among hardcore fans over the years thanks to poor releases like Warcraft 3: Reforged, lengthy delays for games like Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4, and, much more seriously, the ongoing fallout from the sexual harassment suit. Part of the moderate response to Warcraft Arclight Rumble might be down to lowered expectations, but hopefully the game can exceed them once it’s available.

Warcraft Arclight Rumble does not currently have a release date, but it will soon be available in beta, and you can sign up for the test on the official site.

If you guys have phones, you might want to check out our guide to the best iPhone games.