Diablo IV Gold Immortal doesn't cost anything to play, although within the first few minutes, I was wishing it did. I would've preferred to have pay one, simple fee to play at my own speed instead of being bombarded with (surprisingly expensive) microtransactions in every single turn. Diablo Immortal is by no means as bad as free-to-play games, but each single F2P mechanism is designed to harm the game, rather than improve it.

First off, you don't need to spend money in Diablo Immortal if you're not interested in it. It's still possible to experience the full story and get plenty of loot and engage in all the side activities. Also, for the first 20 or 30 character levels, you may not even feel like you're missing out on much.

But a few hours into this game, it slows dramatically, and the F2P grind comes in. (This happens at just about the same time as you begin to get really involved in the game. Just imagine this.) As opposed to the regular Diablo titles, Diablo Immortal occasionally just abruptly stops the story in its tracks and won't let you proceed unless you meet an arbitrary level threshold. That wouldn't be so bad but the game seriously restricts your options to earn meaningful amounts of XP each day. After a few time-limited missions the options are pretty the same as "run the same dungeons over and over again" in addition to "buy Battle Pass." Battle Pass."

(It is revealing that the game strongly recommends purchasing the Battle Pass as an efficient way to increase your level.)

That's, of course the point where all the predatory F2P fraud kicks in. The game features five or six different currencies, and it's completely clear what currency you can earn, and what you'll need to purchase. The Battle Pass costs between $5 to $15, based on how many cosmetic items you'd like -- but there are two other "daily reward" subscriptions, priced at 10 and $20 respectively. If you're keen on earning every reward that the game gives you, it's starting at $45.

Premium currency packs are priced between $1 and $100. Additionally, there are "bundles," which feel extremely flimsy even by F2P standards. Once you've completed every major plot dungeon, the game will offer you a bunch of items as a reward -- only that you need to pay for the bundle. They start out at a fair $1 for each bundle, but then quickly go to $20. As of this writing that, if I bought each bundle that the game had to offer, I would be out about $46.The art direction in Diablo 4, which leans heavily on the influence of ancient and buy Diablo IV Gold Old Masters paintings, applies to the character creation process as well.