Diablo 4 just released a new video teasing new plot points and characters coming in the upcoming action RPG title. While some of these teasers extrapolated on characters seen in the Diablo 4 beta, others gave a first glimpse at details that have only been hinted at before.
Senior manager of lore and Blizzard trivia master Sean Copeland, Diablo 4 game director Joe Shely, associate writer Eden Trujillo, and principal writer Matt Burns appeared in a short video titled “Inside the Game: A New Saga.” The brief development teaser went into detail about the history of Diablo and introduced the core conflict between Lilith and Inarius–the creators of Sanctuary whose eternal enmity provides the framework for the game’s narrative.
It also introduced several major characters players will deal with during Diablo 4. Players met many of these characters in Act 1 during the Diablo 4 beta: Lorath Nahr, the gruff Horadrim scholar and survivor of the events of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, Prava, the Reverend Mother of the Church of Light, and Neyrelle, the ill-fortuned scholar seeking her missing mother. However, the video also gives a first look at Donan–a Horadrim mage and hero found in Scosglen.
During the playable portion of Diablo 4’s beta, Lorath gives characters a quest to find Donan at Eldhaime Keep in Scosglen, but only the Fractured Peaks area was available at the time. Donan was also mentioned in an excerpt from the Book of Lorath–a Diablo 4 companion lorebook releasing simultaneously with the game. The page mentioned he drank a potion made from a monster called a Maggot Queen to deal with his “festering grief,” indicating Donan has had a troubled history.
The Diablo 4 developers mentioned Donan’s relationship to Lorath, and the actions that made him into a hero in Scosglen, will be central to his plot. As the ancestral home of the Druid class in Diablo 4, players will have plenty of things to discover when they travel to the haunted hinterlands of Scosglen.
After getting a taste of what is to come in the Diablo 4 beta, many players can’t wait to see more of the grim ARPG. Shely said the story in Diablo 4 is “the darkest story we’ve ever told,” which is saying something considering Sanctuary has always been brutal. Even so, players can certainly believe it after their battles with bosses like Ashava in Diablo 4. With the game’s release right around the corner, players don’t have to wait long to see what is left of Sanctuary in the wake of Lilith and Inarius’s war.
Diablo 4 will be available on June 6 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
