Diablo Immortal doubles down on social play with snazzy chat features

Diablo Immortal's character classes in a line
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Blizzard has unveiled several of Diablo Immortal’s accessibility features ahead of the game’s launch on Thursday, June 2.

As a free-to-play MMO, Diablo Immortal will include a slate of multiplayer social features. A new blog post outlines how these have been made more accessible to support the game’s core experience.

Most concern its chat functionality, which lets you talk with other players on the server and in your party. You’ll be able to enlarge text size, and a voice transcription feature will automatically transcribe your speech into written text. Watch it in action below:

The reverse is also possible, with a text-to-speech function that narrates incoming chat messages. You can adjust its speed and volume, pick between two voices, and tweak several additional options. See how it works in the video below:

Finally, speech-to-text capability, which is already included in most mobile phones, will also be available for PC players. It’ll convert your spoken words into editable text that can be sent to whichever chat channel you select.

The blog post also details the game’s controller options. Although a mobile-first RPG that received a surprise PC announcement only last month, Diablo Immortal’s controller support looks fairly robust. You’ll be able to remap most controls, and reposition the placement of on-screen buttons on mobile phones. When using a controller, you’ll also be able to toggle a cursor to navigate menu interfaces.

Blizzard has billed these as only the “first round of accessibility features”, with more set to be introduced post-launch off the back of fan feedback. Visual accessibility features, for example, will only involve brightness options at launch, but Blizzard hopes to add additional options for higher contrast settings and color blindness down the line.

Callum Bains
Gaming News Writer

Callum is TechRadar Gaming’s News Writer. You’ll find him whipping up stories about all the latest happenings in the gaming world, as well as penning the odd feature and review. Before coming to TechRadar, he wrote freelance for various sites, including Clash, The Telegraph, and Gamesindustry.biz, and worked as a Staff Writer at Wargamer. Strategy games and RPGs are his bread and butter, but he’ll eat anything that spins a captivating narrative. He also loves tabletop games, and will happily chew your ear off about TTRPGs and board games.