Some things in the game are more thought provoking than others. I think what stood out to me the most was the death of Vigo. His penance was not merely making up for running away, but a torturous death by Iron Maiden, ordered by a “Holy Woman”.
I read Steve Danuser came up with this story, and IMO more or less it’s just a different aspect of Shadowlands, “The Light is evil too”, “believe in your own power”. Such a divorce from DI and DII, I can’t believe the original writers would have been happy. I remember some fellow back years ago that told me that the followers of Anton Lavey are really just a religion that focused on self power.
Anyway, what was the thing that stood out the most to you in all of this? Donan drinking the Tea comes very close, who ever did that voice acting for Donan was extremely good, Hats off to that voice actor, it sounded very real.
They still clearly set up the plot to have Diablo in a future expansion.
In other games Diablo would be the final boss in the base game but it would be someone else like Baal in the expansion. This time they’re just doing the reverse which makes more sense imho because Diablo should be the big final bad guy.
I’m sure you’re right and he’ll show up at some point. I still dislike the fact that the entire main game doesn’t even as much as mention him that I recall.
I also think there are other ways to face him in the core game and still see him in expansions or end as the final big bad guy. Who says we are victorious and kill him the first time?
Its been confirmed all the great evils including Diablo will make an appearance either in main game or expansions.
My problem with the story is Rathma dies. His first in game appearance and they kill him off. Not just kill him off, but right in his very first in game scene! Wtf! And by Inarius? Really?
Also, so many unanswered questions. The endless loopholes. Ugh
Pretty much all of it. They setup all this hype around Lillith is coming, the mother of sanctuary and all that, and we find out absolutely nothing through the whole campaign about what her goals were.
She wants to take mephistos essence! Ok? To do what? It’s never built on or explained at all what her motivations were, what the “prophecy” is about, or what is supposedly coming. She is introduced as this titular character, and is the final fight and that is it. So incredibly underwhelming.
I was really hoping for a twist where we end up working with her against both heaven and hell or something, but nope, we get standard soulstone and wanderer nonsense.
iirc doesn’t the game show how Lilith basically knew Rathma’s prophecy was completely BS all along but still used it to manipulate Elias and Inarius and let them carry on with their delusions?
I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Lilith will be back either.
I could be wrong but I feel like it’s fairly clear she was honest with her goals and simply wanted to keep Sanctuary safe. I think she wanted herself and the humans of sanctuary prepared for the prime evils.
Granted, her way of going about it was evil at times. Killing so many people. I think she was clearly an “End justifies the means” type of person. So yeah, just my opinion but I think her goals were pretty clear.
I think what bothered me the most about the story was that the first two acts drew me in and set the stage with potential. Only to have following Acts end up being predictable/unoriginal, sophomoric, and filled with what seemed like stolen material from their other games. It also offered no real closure and definitely left the player (or me at least) feeling… unheroic in a lot of ways.
Granted, I get it, it’s a Diablo game. But it felt like a bit of a letdown.
I feel like this story suffers a lot due to the open world element to teh game. Because the Wanderer (our PC) has to now be written as basically a purely reactive character. We never really have any sort of agency; just a lot of people telling us to “go to place and do a thing”. By the same token, our PC can’t “know” anything, since there’s only one dialogue track, and it has to be written assuming that we might have done all or none of the story parts elsewhere at any given time. At least; for Acts I-III.
Something unrelated that urked me: I first encountered it when in the temple where Inarius is and thought huh… he’s just… hanging out here? That’s… a very un-Diablo-Angel thing to do…" I thought the point of a lot of Diablo’s stuff was that Heaven and Hell usually tried to be subtle about their presences on Sanctuary; to the point where Deckard Cain COULD be the inheritor of a lost order in the first place… as opposed to you know: local demonic pest-control since them turning up is apparently Tuesday as opposed to the apocalypse.
My biggest issue is with Lorath’s Decision toward the end of the game. I hope we save him. I mean, he trained under Tyrael. Also, Tyrael is mortal from D3 now, will we meet an old Tyrael?