A Diablo mobile game was an April Fools’ joke made by Blizzard four years ago, with fans unearthing a humorous blog posted by the company following its recent Diablo Immortal announcement. With a video of a fan asking Blizzard if Diablo Immortal was an “out-of-season April Fools’ joke” going viral, an old post poking fun at a fictional Diablo mobile game is now doing the rounds online.
The blog, published back in 2014 on the official Diablo 3 website, “announces” the mobile game ‘Happy Reaper.’ The post jokingly refers to the fake game as the “definitive Diablo experience coming soon to web and mobile!”
“In Happy Reaper, players take on the role of Malthael, the Angel of Death, who’s recently returned to Sanctuary with a vengeance,” the post reads. “With a series of well-timed mouse clicks or finger taps, you’ll skillfully guide Malthael through a network of ancient Pandemonium ruins to collect human souls and obliterate all puny nephalem with your trusty Death Laser of Doom™.”
The blog goes on to poke fun at mobile games, noting that Happy Reaper features an “all-new, fully loaded soundscape stimulates your senses and helps you reduce stress, improve sleep, and lose weight.”
Happy Reaper is a play on Flappy Bird, the enormously popular 2013 mobile hit. Blizzard made the game playable in-browser, though it didn’t last after April Fools’. However, the publisher has now returned to the mobile game well for the controversial Diablo Immortal, which has been widely criticized by fans of the long-standing series.
While Blizzard has noted that other Diablo projects are in the works, the disappointing reveal at Blizzcon 2018 has left a bad taste in some fans’ mouths. While Diablo 4 has been all but announced, many still don’t want to see Blizzard branching out into mobile with its IPs, given the platform’s reputation for microtransactions and other unsavory practices. Though Blizzard seems to have changed its stance on mobile games since this April Fools’ joke, it doesn’t seem like its audience has experienced the same change of heart.
