Diablo Immortal now has the lowest user score in Metacritic history

videogameschronicle.com:

Diablo Immortal now has the worst Metacritic user score in the website’s history.

At the time of writing, the PC version of the free-to-play MMO has a user score of 0.2 out of 10, based on nearly 2000 user ratings.

Blizzard‘s previous lowest-rated game – its 2021 re-release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade – received a 0.5 score for adding microtransactions and a much-criticised faction system.

Diablo Immortal was released on June 2 on iOS and Android, and as an open beta on PC, but quickly saw a negative reception for its heavy focus on microtransactions.

This included a report published during the game’s opening weekend that calculated that it could cost players up to $110,000 to fully upgrade a character in the game.

Blizzard has since claimed that Diablo Immortal is the “biggest launch in franchise history”.

It should be noted that Metacritic user scores do not require proof that the user has even played the game before submitting a score, and that other factors, such as recent Activision Blizzard controversies, may have had an influence.

Shortly after launch the game’s director Wyatt Cheng claimed on Twitter that the backlash to the game was “based on misinformation surrounding it”.

Months earlier, Cheng had said: “In Diablo Immortal, there is no way to acquire or rank up gear using money.”

However, Diablo Immortal lets players use real money in a bid to acquire powerful Legendary Gems, one of three progression pillars alongside regular gear and XP level, which can be used to upgrade a character in the post-game.

As such, while it may be accurate that ‘gear’ itself can’t be purchased with real money, some players have now labelled Cheng’s comments as disingenuous following the game’s release.