Warcraft Arclight Rumble: No shit storm for new blizzard mobile

Blizzard announces a cell phone game with Warcraft Arclight Rumble and is there no outcry through the net? Yes, there is.

• is always complained, but not always complaining everyone
• Blizzard has learned not to stir up false hopes
• Own opinion

2. November 2018, Anaheim, California. BlizzCon. Wyatt Cheng comes on stage to announce something new about Diablo. The man has been with Blizzard Entertainment since 2003, has designed some bosses for World of Warcraft, but is primarily known for his cooperation in Diablo 3. The expectations are accordingly large, also because it has been rumored for months that Diablo 4 is in the works and should finally be unveiled at the in -house exhibition. Cheng begins with the words: "BlizzCon! We love Diablo!" The cheers are still great. But already two sentences later he puts a word in his mouth that the good mood can tip up: Mobile devices. Diablo Immortal is announced and two is announced and two Moments from the subsequent AMA become internet memes. As Team Rocket would say: "That was probably a shot in the oven."

Three and a half years later, Blizzard announces another mobile game. This time the Warcraft brand is "raped", as many strict cell phone game more likely to say. It is called Warcraft Arclight Rumble and is essentially a "Clash Royale" cl1. Or let's say it is at least strongly inspired by the Mobile hit by the Finnish developer Supercell. From above you can look at a very vertically built battlefield, on which two political groups are fighting. You stand together in front of a game like your map deck in Hearthst1. And similar to a collective card game, you will play the units one after the other. They act relatively autonomously on the map itself, whereby each unit type has its own special skills.

is always complained, but not always complaining everyone

Now burns the internet because Blizzard has already dared to take a popular brand for a mobile game, which is fully stuffed with microtransactions, instead of simply announcing Warcraft 4? So, …. somehow not. At least when looking at Reddit, it turns out that many people are not so negative about Warcraft Arclight Rumble. That felt very different at Diablo Immortal.

Sure, there are also various critical comments. One gets upset about the cartoon look, which "uses every single mobile game to speak to children", someone else criticizes that there are already so many games of this kind. And then there would be people who simply find the name stupid. I can only agree. Why do it have to be three words? "Warcraft Rumble" would have been enough. Doesn't a manufacturer think of us editors who have to pack these long video game titles in a certain length of limited headings? Well, certainly the "Arclight" in the middle serves to be able to use the acronym. That makes sense, but doesn't make the name better either.

But actually I wanted to talk about the more positive or at least neutral voices. In fact, there are quite a few of them. A Reddit user, for example, writes that Warcraft Arclight Rumble remind him of a fan map for Warcraft 3 called "Playground Fight" and therefore think that he could have fun playing. Another has already gained experience with Minion Masters, a PC and Xbox One game with certain similarities and think that Warcraft Arclight Rumble looks pretty good. He adds: "The good at Blizzard is that his games, whatever they will become of them, are always polished to a high gloss. So I will probably try it out a little and see if it grabs me or not." Again another user is also impressed by the previously shown, but also says that in the end a lot depends on how Blizzard Monetarizes the game. Exactly this neutral to benevolent attitude can be found in the Reddit comments in many places.

Blizzard has learned not to stir up false hopes

A user summarizes why Warcraft Arclight Rumble is not the next sow that is driven by the large village called the Internet. He writes: "This is basically what I expected. I will definitely try it out and I very much appreciate that long before the announcement has been communicated so clearly that it is about a mobile game." This is the crucial aspect of why no shitstorm is now collapsing like in 2018 after the unveiling of Diablo Immortal. The situation is simply a completely different one:

a) Blizzard has indeed revealed days earlier that the new Warcraft game will be a title for smartphones and tablets. b) Warcraft Arclight Rumble has not announced in the course of a large event like the Blizzcon, whose audience mainly consists of PC and console players. c) There was no hope that a Warcraft 4 could be revealed.

It would certainly have been a little different if you had just said that you would like to present a new game from the Warcraft universe on May 3rd. Obviously, the group from the "Diablo Immortal" disaster learned how expectation management works.

But even people find one thing stupid who are not averse to the game: the release date. After all, it doesn't exist. Blizzard only says that you can register in advance for future beta tests via Battle.net. But also when they should take place is unknown. One wonders why Blizzard was not so smart to reveal the game when it is playable immediately. "I would have looked directly in, just to see how it is if you had published it today, but now it will simply be forgotten [if it appears at some point]," writes a Reddit user.

The names Blizzard and Warcraft alone are no longer sufficient to create money printing machines these days. The company's reputation is now too dirty. So whether a game that ments just Clash Royale and all of his clones can still attract great attention, if it might come on the market at the end of the year or 2023. A real "Shadow Drop" would certainly have given him a proper start boost. Blizzard has missed this opportunity.

Own opinion

I personally don't care about Warcraft Arclight Rumble. I don't think bad or good over the game - on the one hand, because I generally do not gain mobile games, on the other hand because the game principle that Clash Royale has established does not appeal to me. Even if Blizzard would later take the same step as in the case of Diablo Immortal and also publish a PC version, I would leave it on the left. But that does not mean that I do not treat the thing to the thing, provided that it is not too aggressive. Because we are honest: If Warcraft Arclight Rumble should fail on the market, it would not exactly increase the chances that a Warcraft 4 will ever be developed.

Now to the Warcraft Arclight Rumble website!