Diablo 4’s next expansion, Lord of Hatred, is more than just another chapter in the Diablo universe. Since its release in back in 2023, Diablo 4 has told a singular story referred to as The Hatred Saga; as its events have unfolded, we’ve found our character, The Wanderer, at the center of a battle between Heaven, Hell, Sanctuary, and one extremely messy family. However, all of that is about to come to a close, as Lord of Hatred sees us reunite with the game’s former antagonist, Lilith, in an epic showdown against Mephisto that will both explore Sanctuary’s past and settle its future.
Ahead of Lord of Hatred’s April 28 release date, developer Blizzard showcased the expansion–and its upcoming Warlock class–in a Spotlight presentation. Prior to the showcase, GameSpot had the opportunity to sit down with Diablo 4’s associate game director Zaven Haroutunian and art director Nick Chilano to dig deeper into why players should be excited for the arc’s epic finale. The pair spoke in depth about Skovos, its Amazonian guardians, what this moment means for Diablo as a whole, and how happy they are that fans love “mommy” Lilith.
GameSpot: First things first, I would like to talk to you both a bit more about Skovos. Skovos, I feel, has been this mythological place in Diablo. It was teased back in Diablo II, we thought maybe it was going to be explored and then it wasn’t, and now we’re finally getting it. What is it like to realize something that has been so monumental to the community?
Zaven Haroutunian, associate game director: I’ve been playing Diablo games since the very beginning so I had that exact same feeling of like, “Oh my God, it’s Skovos. I get to go there. I’m going to meet the Amazons.” I want to do all this stuff–meet the Oracles and so on and so forth.
It’s awesome. It’s someplace we’ve never really gone in this series. No game has gone deeper than a scratch into what this place is. So it was a good opportunity to sit back and take stock of the series’ entire history.
When we were building Skovos–not just the story part, but the culture there and the characters and the history–we were going through the Diablo II manual trying to rediscover what we’ve said about this place. We wrote everything down like, “Oh, we didn’t name all the islands. Let’s name islands. Let’s try to draw these things from the book.”
One of the islands we’ve got is named Celestia, which comes right from the Diablo II manual as the name of a character. We had to clean up some of the lore because not everything was perfect, but yeah, it’s been fun and exciting. And honestly, that’s just the narrative and thematic parts of it. The visual side has been really cool, because we get to realize the first time we ever get to see this place in our beautiful Diablo IV engine.
Skovos’s largest city, Temis.an
Nick Chilano, art director: On the art side, it was like, “Oh, we finally get to make something pretty and nice.” It’s not full of doom and gloom right off the bat so that was a nice palette cleanser for the team. But then we get to do what we do best, which is start to bring in evil–let’s start to break it apart.
I think we were able to do it in a really cool way that lines up with our story. Where you start and where you end… you go on a ride, both narratively and visually. And again, having this place that hasn’t really been involved in what’s going on and has been isolated really allowed us to “find” somewhere.
We leaned into something a little more Mediterranean since there are islands. We were able to bring in a lot of nice color, a lot of nice foliage and plants, and really spruce up the place a little bit. And then [we] break it.
Haroutunian: And then shit goes sideways.
Chilano: You know what’s also interesting, is there’s a lot of layers to this place too. Inarius and Lilith, it started here. There’s a lot of history here. So layering that stuff in, and figuring out things like, where we want something that’s more scary? Where do we want this vibe to come in? Where do we want to layer [ruins] underneath this other civilization that’s been here [more recently]? We had a lot of visual knobs to turn.
Speaking of going sideways, let’s talk Mephisto and everything this guy is up to right now, which is a lot, as it turns out. What has it been like designing this character with so much ambiguity? You see this rise to power that he’s going through, but you still also have this past relationship with him. What is it like writing that?
Haroutunian: When you first start Diablo IV and have your character that you’ve made, the first actual character you see is the face of the wolf flash before you in the cave. So he’s been part of your journey from the very beginning–before you even knew, right?
I don’t think we’ve ever spent this much time really developing a singular villain like this in Diablo before. So it’s been really interesting, being able to say, “What does he want? How does he work? How does he do these things?” And we’re watching him do it in real time. We’re not arriving after he’s already done the thing, right? Here we get to see him do it, step by step.
Going into Lord of Hatred, he has all his pieces in place. He has everything he needs. Everything’s been standing in this tension as you consider, “Who are my friends? Who are my enemies? What’s my relationship with these people?” But now is the point where that starts collapsing.
You’re going to be learning his plans and you’re going to be playing catch-up with him, but he’s also considered one of the most intelligent Prime Evils. So he’s smarter than you, and he’s going to be trying to cut you off. He knows everything that he needs, and he knows you don’t know. So he’s going to be outplaying you as you go.
Chilano: Visually, he’s one of my favorite Prime Evils. So when we actually got to realize him, I remember telling the team, “All right, if we don’t deliver something that feels like he’s a skyscraper compared to the player…” Scale is going to matter, that imposing like stature is going to matter. So I wanted to go all in on his presence.
And also on that intellectual vibe, I wanted it to feel like, in these moments where you meet him or you’re dealing with him, it’s a mental game, not just a physical game. He’s in your head. There’s a lot of that going on, which I think the team delivered again really well. We got to visualize it in some really cool ways, but I think the payoff is fantastic.
Haroutunian: We talk about this being a Prime Evil, but he’s not just a monster. In this world, he is like a god. He’s like the closest thing to that that we’ll ever get really [in] Sanctuary. So no one is immune, right? He can do whatever. On screen, he’s a monster. But in the narrative construct of the game, he’s basically a god. He’s one of the top three forces of Hell, right?
Diablo 4’s primarily antagonist, Mephisto
And this is essentially the finale of this three part Hatred trilogy, right? What’s it like closing the book on this?
Haroutunian: So we’ve talked about this being sort of a moment in time. This is a big beat, right? And whatever we do here, we’ve said we want to make sure that a moment as big as this leaves a lasting mark.
We want to make sure that things change and things move. And when people in the future–when you look in the past and you look at this arc–you’re like, “Oh, this meaningfully changed Diablo, Sanctuary, and this series. It moved things in a certain way.”
And the cool thing is players were able to be there from the very beginning, right? Again, this is not just you showing up and things are already bad. You get to see things devolve–you get a front-row seat. Your character’s the main guy involved in all of this stuff.
So we’ve been trying to keep this in mind for the player that this is the first time they really get to shape this moment, right? They’re not a participant, they’re not arriving after the fact, they’re on the ride the whole time.
Chilano: And because it’s a moment, I think it allowed for us to really lean into the fantasy of what we want the player to experience–the fantasy of who these characters are–and really push into those moments. I want the spectacle to be huge, so we’re going to go all in here.
It also just opened up the floodgates of creativity for the team to go like, “If I’m going to do something, it’s going to be awesome. We’re going to lay our chips on the table and go all in.”
What do you hope, as you finish this trilogy, is the thing that people take away? What evolved the franchise as a whole, or do you think you’re really adding to the canon?
Haroutunian: We’ve generally tried to progress the story in terms of what happens next and it hasn’t really been this full-circle thing. But Diablo IV does that because it brings the creators of Sanctuary to the forefront of the story; it brings in the origins of humanity and stuff like that to the forefront of the story. And it’s something that we haven’t really done before.
I look at this as, anywhere we can, we try to tie something back to an earlier game, even in Lord of Hatred, right? So we’re saying we’re going to Skovos. Well, there’s that famous line that Lorath and Tiri share about Skovos being “a dangerous land.” Well, we have to pay that off now, right? Anything that we remember from the Amazons in Diablo II, we have to pay that off.
So I look at these three entries as, “Hey, this is taking all of Diablo.” And just holding it and saying, “This is all of it made manifest in this version of the world.” So to me, it’s been really exciting being able to tie things that have been disparate for such a long time together.
And that’s not just narratively–it’s even mechanically in some cases, right? We have all this rich influence that we can take from the series and put it in Diablo IV. So I’m looking at this and saying, “Ah, it’s a complete picture.” The painting feels good.
Chilano: Coming from the art side of stuff, I think we’ve done a fantastic job of delivering a world that, I think, meets players’ expectations. But I also want to make sure–I mean, nobody does angels and demons like we do–but I want players to be able to feel like they were able to step into this world and be a part of it.
I’m hoping that they feel satisfied. I feel like they’re going to be. As a player, I’m satisfied by what we’re making and playing. I think they’re getting this complete Diablo package that just feels really good.
Haroutunian: Yeah. We have this old design value of “focus on the fantasy” that we’ve been trying to leverage as much as we can. And there’s degrees where it’s like, “Oh, that’s way too fan service-y.” And it’s like, well, no, as long as we’re staying true to the series and to the story that we’re building and we’re not diverging for any reason beyond just making the best thing that we can, it all fits and all works. And I hope players see that and I hope they have a great time, honestly. It’s been fun to build and I’m excited to play it.
Speaking of fan service and the Amazons… I played a lot of Diablo and Diablo II with my dad growing up. And I loved the Amazon class because it felt like a moment of like, “This is for me.” I got to play this really powerful, cool lady and she was my favorite class. And I was very confident–and very incorrect–in assuming they’d be the next class. But still, what is it like revisiting the Amazons all these years later? Even if it’s not in the capacity of being a character you play, you’re still expanding their story and visiting this very isolated society.
Haroutunian: So [Nick] touched on it earlier but it’s been fun to build a place that’s not just grotesque and destroyed and ruined. And one of the things we had to answer is like, “Well, why?” And so a very early decision we had was like, “Because of the Amazons.” Why is this place so safe? Why has it been able to keep all evil at bay? Because of the Amazons. They’re just so f**king badass. Anyone who shows up, they’re like, “No. No, you’re not going to…”
And it’s like, what kind of people show up? Pirates? Whatever. Call the Amazons, they’ll kill these pirates and we’ll be fine. And so it’s a society that’s been able to maintain its order, partly due to all its various orders, right? Amazon orders being one of them, the Oracles is another.
When you go to Skovos, the example I’ve used is, people pay their taxes, the roads get fixed, the houses aren’t constantly on fire. This is a society that’s taken care of, right? It is protected, and is well defended. And anytime anything goes wrong, all the Amazons show up, lock shields, and just like, f**k with anything that shows up. We wanted to pay tribute to that class, and the fantasy people had when they saw it in the story.
So when you go to the Skovos, you’re going to see this made manifest, right? Man, when the Amazons show up, they clean up–they leave nothing and that’s how badass they are. And then we also play with that in the lore. It’s not just what they are today, it’s historically what they’ve been. And we get to dive a little bit deeper into their culture and things like that and see why they are even like this. There’s a whole lot of connections deeper than that to like old lore. All that stuff comes up to the forefront.
The cover of The Lost Horadrim, which features Lorath and Adreona
And connections to Lorath too, right?
Haroutunian: With Lorath… I don’t know if people have seen the book that we’re going to be publishing pretty soon, which is The Lost Horadrim, but it’s got him and Adreona, who’s an [Amazon] captain. She’s on the cover right there next to him. So, that’s when we’re going to dig into that story and then we’ll see what happens when we go to Skovos and Lord of Hatred.
Chilano: I think too, what I really enjoy about this is we’ve set up such a good bad guy, that I think you need really good guys. I think the Amazons really fill that role. You need something that powerful to stop what’s happening. So it’s not just random guards and stuff like that. You need the elite, you need the top, because what’s coming to Skovos… No one else would have been ready for it.
Haroutunian: Yeah, a funny difference you see between Skovos and all the other regions of Diablo IV is anytime you go to Ked Bardu or something, it’s just some guy with disheveled armor just standing there. But anywhere you go in Skovos, there are Amazons at attention–at guard, fighting pose ready, and they’re just watching. And they don’t trust you when you show up, right? You’re an outsider. You are not Askari, you’re not Amazon, you’re not from Skovos, you’re a mainlander. What are you doing here? So they keep the peace and you don’t want to piss them off.
We talked a little bit, with Skovos, about designing something that is so incredibly different from the rest of the world, but was it nerve wracking?
Chilano: You’re always riding this line, because I think there’s an expectation that like death, decay, demons–it’s everywhere. But that one note all the time, it gets pretty repetitive.
We can always go there, and we know that and we do it really well. So I think the challenge was trying to go, “What is our take on these islands? What is the influence we want to take from places that we know are beautiful?”
So we had that, but then… We had conversations like, “This doesn’t feel Diablo enough.” But then, as the story starts getting laid in, and we start looking at what we’re doing and the path we’re following, then we’re like, “Okay, here’s where we start to go.” And it was surgical. It was like, “We’re going to do it here. We’re going to take you here, and then we’re going to go here, and then we’re going to start to turn up the heat, turn up the heat, and turn up the heat.”
So the goal is where you start is not where you end, but you have that contrast and you also understand what [the world] is going to be like if you don’t get involved, right? I think everything lines up really, really well. The narrative, the design, the mechanics, the story, the art… Everything locks in all at the right moments. And so I think it’s really cohesive, comes together really well.
Lastly, the reception to Lilith was incredible. Everybody loves Lilith. She’s mommy, right? What was it like getting that reception and knowing that you were going to bring her back? In this third chapter, she’s a major figure. Did fan response impact her presence or become something you had to consider?
Haroutunian: I would actually say like, there were times in between the launch of the original game and coming into Lord of Hatred where we tried to tease it just a little bit. It happened a little bit like in Season 2, as an example. It happened again when we launched Infernal Hordes and again with Festival of Hatred. You have that moment [where] you’re like, “Wait, there’s something wrong with me.”
And other characters are like, “There’s something wrong with your blood.” And we keep doing this over and over and over again. And I hope when what happens, happens, players are like, “Oh, no wonder these things have been happening.” And so, I’m happy that players liked her so much, because it meant we didn’t have to abandon any plans or anything like that. But it’s like, oh man, the reception is exactly what we were hoping for. We’re really happy she was well received and her part is not done in the story.
The above interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
