Blizzard's new mobile game announcement didn't piss everyone off this time

Warcraft Arclight Alliance armored warrior and Night Elf riding cat mount
(Image credit: Blizzard)

Warcraft Arclight Rumble seems to have dodged the level of outrage that the last Blizzard mobile game announcement received. Perhaps that's because, unlike Diablo Immortal, Arclight Rumble wasn't announced during the same event as Blizzard's other massive games, and it isn't striking fans as a replacement for another game that we should have gotten instead. There was no exaggeration around its announcement: it was to be a Warcraft game for mobile. And that's exactly what we got.

Outside of places like the World of Warcraft subreddit, which is unsurprisingly full of derision for a game that is seen as a mobile cash grab ripoff, people seem willing to give Arclight Rumble a shot. Expectations were low and the game seems to have risen above them, or at least enough for people to quickly understand its fairly modest ambitions: Arclight Rumble isn't really for PC players in the same way that most Blizzard games are and have been for decades.

"I can't really bring my PC with me when I go for a sandwich at lunch. But I can absolutely play two or three games of this game, of Arclight, while we're sitting, waiting for food, and it's nice to be able to play wherever you are, and then also come back and do PC gaming. I don't see them as mutually exclusive. I think they can coexist—and do—and it's great," associate game director Adam Kugler told me in an interview prior to the game's announcement.

For most of the world, this is how mobile games are played. That's why they're such a huge deal in Asia and continue to grow in North America. Mobile games brought in the most revenue compared to PC and console games in 2020. Phones are the new PC for so many people these days; it's where you chat with your friends, where you watch Twitch streams, and where you read articles like this one. For Blizzard to design a game that fits with a lifestyle for billions of people makes sense, and the response outside its most hardcore fans reflects that. 

"This is basically what I expected," wrote Reddit user MultiMarcus. "I will definitely try it out and I do appreciate the announcement being very clear that long before today they had stated that this was a mobile game."

"Honestly this seems like it could be fun. I know everyone loves to be hypercritical of Blizzard nowadays, I am willing to give this a fair shot," another Reddit user, Bagelstein, wrote.

Blizzard's ongoing miasma of lawsuits and workplace harassment allegations makes it hard for anyone to rally behind anything it announces right now. A new WoW expansion doesn't alleviate the ways in which the company routinely has hurt its employees, and neither does Arclight Rumble. It's probably intentional that the trailer is framed as two developers excitedly chatting about the game as if you passed by them in the office. It shows that, despite everything, there are still people making games that they're genuinely thrilled about.

Monetization is the only thing that's caused considerable worry in the reactions to the announcement. It's always a big question when it comes to mobile games. Arclight Rumble is as much about its mini RTS levels as it is about collecting Warcraft-themed units, or 'minis', to deploy. The developers assured me that the campaign will provide you with a constant trickle of experience and minis to use and that the real money transactions are simply to skip having to spend extra time finishing quests. But mobile games are updated constantly and it's not uncommon for them to get hungrier and hungrier for your money as they go on.

Warcraft Arclight Rumble screenshot of hero selection screen

(Image credit: Blizzard)

Many people were quick to point out that the game looks like Blizzard's PvE-focused take on Clash Royale, which is particularly exploitative with its loot box-style monetization system. While I didn't ask the developers specifically about the similarities, they appear to be very aware of those concerns.

"We're trying to make it as player choice as possible," Kugler told me. "There's no loot box systems, for example. Every single time that you're presented with something, there's a choice for what to choose, even in the quest system. When you go fight something, you get to choose what gets experience. So at every step of the way, we want to see if we can put in a way for players to have a choice rather than just a random kind of blind selection."

There are many people calling the game a complete clone of Clash Royale, but others welcome a Blizzard version of it.

"I guess I'll be the odd one out and say I'm actually very interested in this. I've wanted someone to make a PVE singleplayer/co-op Clash Royale ripoff for years," Reddit user Kreeztoff wrote.

I remember when Overwatch was announced and people kept calling it a Team Fortress 2 ripoff. It was and it wasn't. That's the Blizzard way. The developer has built itself on taking the basic structure of other popular games and hammering it into something more approachable. World of Warcraft borrowed from EverQuest, Heroes of the Storm borrowed from Dota 2 and League of Legends, and Hearthstone borrowed from Magic: The Gathering.

Arclight Rumble isn't any different, and as someone who has played Blizzard games for years, it feels like yet another way the developer is trying to meet players where they are.

Tyler has covered videogames and PC hardware for 15 years. He regularly spends time playing and reporting on games like Diablo 4, Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, and Final Fantasy 14. While his specialty is in action RPGs and MMOs, he's driven to cover all sorts of games whether they're broken, beautiful, or bizarre.

Read more
Plunderstorm screenshot
WoW's Plunderstorm battle royale mode is much more popular the second time around: 'I can just play and screw around'
New art of Harry and Kim from Disco Elysium, with Harry holding a lit molotov cocktail.
Despite Disco Elysium Mobile aiming to 'captivate the TikTok user,' it looks surprisingly decent—but it's still insulting to Disco's ousted creators
World of Warcraft The War Within screenshots
Delves have given WoW's devs the confidence to put mandatory grinds firmly in the rear-view, says game director Ion Hazzikostas
CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, speaks onstage during "Managing Excellence: Getting Consistently Great Results" at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on October 19, 2016 in San Francisco, California.
Bobby Kotick reckons the Warcraft film was 'a terrible idea' for Blizzard, and in the end 'was one of the worst movies I've ever seen'
Best Free Steam Games - Marvel Rivals - Black Widow aims down a sniper scope.
'The market is large enough to accommodate both games': NetEase is confident it can make space for Marvel Rivals and Overwatch 2
Bobby Kotick in 2008, after the Vivendi merger that made Activision into Activision Blizzard.
Bobby Kotick says he'd never have raised World of Warcraft's subscription by even a dollar because 'it's a prickly audience, you don't wanna do too much to agitate them'
Latest in RTS
Earth vs Mars screenshot - Martian troopers vs Earth light tanks
Relic's new project is a 'smaller indie-style' game about a martian invasion of Earth
Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition promo art
Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition DLC promised last year is cancelled: 'We announced content before it had been built, and we now feel that announcement was premature'
Tempest Dynasty faction
The first multiplayer demo for my most anticipated RTS, Tempest Rising, is out now
Former Age of Empires developer says the RTS genre's stuck in a rut: 'you're still playing the same game'
Creeper World IXE
Creeper World IXE breaks the RTS mold and adds a dash of Noita's alchemy to the gooey war
A large blue factory complex in Industrial Annihilation
Planetary Annihilation successor has a bumpy landing on Steam, and the backers aren't happy: 'So bare bones that it's basically an asset show without a game'
Latest in News
HP inkjet printer
HP settles the class action lawsuit which claimed its printer updates 'act as malware', avoiding either a big payout or admitting wrongdoing
'For too long, Apple has operated a walled garden around its products': The EU forces Apple to open its closed system to third parties
Abstract image with a wireframe humanoid face on a digital art background
The 2012 source code for AlexNet, the precursor to modern AI, is now on Github thanks to Google and the Computer History Museum
Shadow of Mordor's beloved nemesis system exists because the publisher threw a tantrum about second-hand sales
Silent Hill f transmission trailer screenshots
Silent Hill f is not messing around – now it's been banned in Australia
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 22: A view of Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California, United States on August 22, 2024.
'Google must divest the Chrome browser:' DOJ renews call for Google to sell Chrome, and Android could be next