Maps in previous games.
Doing a brief review on how the theme of the maps has evolved in this franchise, we find that in Diablo 1 we even had no map. Already in Diablo 2, Metzen and his team create the first world map of Sanctuary.
[Diablo 2 map.]
https://imgur.com/clUeSsJ
Inside the canon, it is with this map Richard Knaak used to write The Sin War trilogy.
The ruins of Inarius’ Cathedral, corresponds to the location of the city of Kehjan, which gives its name to the entire continent, Kehjistan, which was the most important city in the world.
To the south, the ruins of Mephisto’s temple, which corresponds to the Great Temple of the Triune in the city of Kalinash.
[Diablo 3 map.]
https://imgur.com/yn7V5uK
After the explosion of Mount Arreat, this map undergoes some modifications apart from the consequences of this explosion, we must thank the inclusion of other locations in the books such as Ureh, Bramwell, Westmarch or Gea Kul.
The Amazon Islands are now called Skovos Islands, and 3 more islands are added, although it only adds one name, Skartara.
The ruins disappear, surely you will want to play with the location of these within the world, but moving them too far from Toraja could fall into more than one contradiction. [And remember, Kehjan is to the north, Kalinash two days on horseback to the south.]
DIABLO IV
With the announcement of Diablo IV, we now know that we will have 5 areas connected in a open world: Scosglen, Dry Steppes, Fractured Peaks, Hawezar and Kehjistan.
Now we can compare the map that appears in the demo with the map used in the World & Lore panel.
[D4 demo map.]
https://imgur.com/OtbZVIo
The first demo of Diablo IV is quite wide, in the 15 minutes you have you hardly have time to finish a mission and maybe face the worldboss Ashava. Cleaning up this whole map is about two hours of play, between main missions, side events, events and the world leader.
[World & Lore panel]
https://imgur.com/GjJ0YfC
The world map, with the 5 zones, is gigantic, if such a small part of the world is two hours of play … the whole map is hundreds of hours
[D4 zones using D3 map.]
https://imgur.com/eESp1FU
Also in the World & Lore panel, devs used the “old” D3 map to explain each zone.
However, when we want to compare this map with the one seen in the demo we begin to see details that do not match.
[Map comparation.]
https://imgur.com/wCrnBWE
Taking as reference the island of Xiansai, the strait with Dreadlands and the gulfs / bays of the east coast, we realize that it is much narrower than it should.
The area of Kehjistan is very small and to the south between the bay of the southwest with the gulf of the southeast remains a kind of isthmus that does not exist in previous maps.
Superimposing on a scale, so that the Scosglen coast fits over the Diablo 3 map.
[Scaled map]
https://imgur.com/2oNlwwH
The map should widen much more, Kehjistan and Hawezar are very small at the moment.
It is not that the map has to be like in Diablo 3 necessarily, but the more map the better, some areas offer you the possibility of making some changes with respect to previous maps, for example, the Fractured Peaks coast gives you the opportunity to add fjords like those of Norway or Chile, in Hawezar you can put shallow coastal lagoons like La Albufera (Spain), Lagoa dos Patos (Brazil) or Nichupté (Mexico).
The reference in the future apart from the shape of the coast will be to see the location of Caldeum, Gea Kul, Tur Dulra and especially Ureh.