Blizzard’s Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred expansion is launching very soon with the new DLC’s release date just around the corner. As the second major expansion for the live-service ARPG, Blizzard is continuing the fight against Mephisto with a narrative conclusion to the ongoing Age of Hatred.
Speaking in a recent roundtable interview with press, Blizzard explained that this expansion will mark the end of the ongoing storyline surrounding Lilith and Mephisto, but that doesn’t mean Diablo 4 is over and done with. However, that doesn’t mean these characters won’t return at some point in the future. After all, it is Diablo.
“Finality within Diablo if an often highly-debated term,” says production director Barry Morales, explaining that Prime Evils have returned multiple times across the games. “However, we are looking at this as the end of the Age of Hatred and the player’s journey with Mephisto, from fighting his herald in wold form in Vessel of Hatred to now being able to confront him directly in Lord of Hatred”.
While Blizzard is “focused on Lord of Hatred now”, it does seem that there is more content in the works for Diablo 4 with Morales teasing the fact that the “30th Anniversary and Blizzcon [are] around the corner”.
As with any ARPG in this modern gaming era, Diablo 4 has been through a lot of changes. A lot, a lot. Just last month, game director Zaven Haroutunian explained that every game in the genre needs to “go through this transformative arc”, even if that means it’s “really hard for players to keep up”. With that said, the game director now believes that the changes coming with Lord of Hatred make the latest Diablo the best its ever been.
“We think Lord of Hatred is the best Diablo 4 has ever been,” the game director tells press. “We think of it as the ultimate expression of the game.”
Lead system designer Colin Finer backed the game director, saying the game is “one hundred percent” the best it has ever been. “So many of the features are a love letter to Diablo and its players” the developer says. “It’s been a huge labour of love from the team. We’ve been playing the game constantly internally. It’s so easy to lose yourself in the flow state of grinding War Plans, using the map overlay to efficiently navigate every level, and using the loot filter to make ultra-endgame items pop”.
It’s clear that Diablo 4 has been through a long series of ups-and-downs, but Blizzard has finally made the jump to improve core features of the ARPG. Diablo is far from the only Blizzard game to get a boot-up-the-behind recently with a relaunch of Overwatch, major reworks in World of Warcraft, and more.
While there’s more life in Diablo 4 yet, Blizzard has also teased a future Diablo 5 shouldn’t be too far away compared to prior releases. In a recent interview, executive producer and VP Gavian Whishaw claimed that Blizzard will release additional games in the series at a faster clip than before.
“It’s kind of complicated when you’re talking about titles that have been around for 20 years and people are still dedicated to and still playing and still going to get excited about new content,” the executive said. “I’ll say at a high level, I think over 30 years of Diablo, we’ve done five titles. So I would hope that over the next 30 years we do a few more than that, maybe we get some out faster.”
