Diablo IV Takes Place 50 Years After the Events of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls

Blizzard released a new video for their upcoming action RPG Diablo IV, focusing on the game’s lore as this game takes place 50 years after the events in Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. 

The Prime Evils are no longer the focus as Sanctuary is threatened yet again with the return of Lilith with Blizzard focusing the main narrative around two beings – Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto, and an archangel Inarius. 

It’s a rather interesting narrative as this not only delves deep into the relationship between the two otherworldy beings but the origins of the order called the Horadrim and Sanctuary, the world that humanity sadly calls home. 

But why has Lilith returned to Sanctuary? Well, let’s save all that for the actual game, but for those coming in, take note that this will be a new cast of characters introduced into a new approach in storytelling with at least one familiar face from the previous game.

If you played any of Diablo IV’s betas, then you got a taste of the game’s fleshed-out cutscenes that were played out with your created character and key characters that will play a pivotal role in the game’s main narrative. We got introduced to at least three main characters, the young adventurer Donan, Lorath (the only familiar face from the last game), and Prava, the leader of the Cathedral of Light.

But what about the character you play? Well, based on the video above, he’s an unfortunate soul that was simply trying to escape the chilling winter storm as he/she travels to the Fractured Peaks, the zone where the first act of the campaign takes place. Simply you taking shelter in the cave results in you getting wrapped up to eventually being tasked with hunting down Lilith herself. Thankfully you are no pushover and is capable of dealing with whatever horror gets in your way.

I thoroughly enjoyed their approach to storytelling this time around based on what I experienced in the betas and this is the one title that doesn’t require playing previous titles from the series in order to get a grasp at what's going on, due to the fact that Diablo IV takes place five decades later. Though, to be fair, it’s just a YouTube video or two will be enough to get you up to speed.

Diablo IV is weeks away from release and Blizzard is slowly releasing more and more about each aspect of the game. Last week, they revealed how they will tackle post-launch content and how they will update the game as they plan to treat it as a live service game.

The devs have also talked in depth about how endgame will work for Diablo IV.

Diablo IV will go live on June 6, 2023, for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC with cross-play and cross-progression. Those who buy either the Digital Deluxe edition or the Ultimate edition can get access to the game 4-days earlier than the rest.

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