[GameSpot] - Diablo Immortal Update Will Finally Let Players Craft 5-Star Legendary Gems

[343iBot]

Diablo Immortal will at long last let players craft 5-Star Legendary Gems, thanks to the addition of a new currency used specifically for crafting the powerful items.

As detailed by Blizzard in a new blog post, the October 12 update will add a new currency, Telluric Pearls, to Diablo Immortal. Telluric Pearls will be used to craft 5-Star Legendary Gems and can be earned in a few different ways. They can be exchanged for Hilts from the Hilt Vendor in Westmarch (which players earn by completing various challenges), earned through participating in various limited-time events, or purchased as part of specific in-game shop bundles, like the Seeker's Supplies and Rift-Runner's Supplies.

It's a major change for Diablo Immortal, and addresses one of the primary issues many players have had with the free-to-play mobile game since its launch earlier this year: the fact that 5-Star Legendary Gems are incredibly powerful and important but, until this update, could realistically only be obtained by spending large amounts of money. That effectively made Diablo Immortal, which has numerous PvP elements as well as PvE leaderboards, pay-to-win.

Though it's not known quite yet how many of these Telluric Pearls players will be able to effectively earn for free or how much it will cost to create 5-Star Legendary Gems (or whether or not players will be able to choose which specific gems they want to create), it does seem to be a step in the right direction when it comes to letting free-to-play players feel like they have a meaningful way to progress their characters without busting out their credit cards.

The upcoming update will also introduce multiple new limited-time events, new cosmetics, and a recruit-a-friend system that will reward both recruiters and new recruits with various crafting materials, consumables like Legendary Crests, and more.

Speaking of Legendary Crests, they are getting a bit of a visual redesign with the update. Normal Legendary Crests are changing in appearance to better differentiate them between Eternal Legendary Crests, with the only difference between the two being that players can sell gems earned through Eternal Legendary Crests on the game's marketplace. That distinction wasn't clear before, but should be moving forward.

Diablo Immortal reportedly earned more than $100 million within its first two months, even as players criticized the game for how it was monetized. Blizzard president Mike Ybarra defended the game's microtransactions in an interview shortly after launch, saying he felt good about the mobile entry "as an introduction to Diablo." Diablo Immortal recently received what Blizzard defined as the game's first "major" update, which brought significant changes to the game's Warband system.

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