Diablo Immortal loot boxes are halting their release in some countries

Well, here’s some bad news for people living in Belgium or the Netherlands who are looking forward to gaming Diablo immortal, Blizzard’s upcoming free-to-play dungeon crawler launches June 2nd on PC and mobile. It turns out Blizzard’s next action RPG won’t be released in either country due to local loot box laws.

And it seems unlikely that Blizzard will change the game to comply with these local laws anytime soon, leaving affected players without many options.

As first reported by the Dutch news site tweakerActivision Blizzard has quietly postponed its release plans Diablo immortal. The free role playing game will not be available in Belgium or the Netherlands due to regulations and laws in those countries. A communications manager at the call of Duty and over watch The publisher confirmed to the outlet that due to “current operating conditions in these countries” on June 2, the game will not be released in the previously listed countries.

Over on the Diablo immortal underreddit, a player shared a message from a Blizzard Gamemaster that explained it in more detail Immortal skipped some countries due to laws against loot boxes.

“The loot boxes in the game are against the law in your country,” the Blizzard employee explained. “So unless gambling restrictions change, the game will not be released in the Netherlands and Belgium.”

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The same employee also stated that players could attempt to circumvent the restriction, but doing so could result in a ban from Blizzard.

Continue reading: Loot boxes are there to exploit us

kotaku contacted Activision Blizzard about Diablo immortal‘s loot boxes and release.

To make things even more frustrating for players, Blizzard is reportedly having people in Belgium and the Netherlands preload the game before launch. tweaker reports that players in these countries were able to preload the game after the game’s release date was announced. However, a few days later, the option was quietly removed.

Diablo immortal is not the first game to break European anti-lootbox and gambling laws.

We’ve seen companies like EA face severe penalties for continuing to use loot boxes in places like the Netherlands and Great Britain. In response to the increasing pressure on these purchasable random crateshave avoided some publishers Release of Games in Certain Countries.

Other companies like Rockstar have disabled certain features related to gambling or in-game microtransactions depending on where you play. Some games like Fourteen days and rocket leaguehave complete changed how their loot boxes work or just removed them completelywhich is a good thing considering how much these in-app purchases and shops are starting to just look like work like casino slot machineseven in big $60 games.