Diablo’s world of Sanctuary isn’t what you’d call a hot tourist destination. Between mobs of monsters, cultists with dark designs, and a general sense of decay that permeates the landscape, Sanctuary has been forever scarred by the war between Heaven and Hell. But in Diablo 4’s second major expansion, Lord of Hatred, players will get to venture to the sacred isles of Skovos. The ancient birthplace of the firstborn civilization, Skovos is a region where humanity has thrived and has built wonders, a stark departure from the “grotesque and destroyed” landscape that Diablo players are used to.
“It’s been fun to build a place that’s not just grotesque and destroyed and ruined,” associate game director Zaven Haroutunian said to GameSpot, explaining how the Amazons and Oracles had created a haven. “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. 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.”
Art director Nick Chilano added that the grim aesthetics of Diablo could get repetitive over time. However, the real challenge was creating a region that was beautiful yet still felt like a natural part of Diablo’s world. “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,” Chilano said.
“We can always go there, and we know that, and we do it really well. So I think the challenge was: What is our take on these islands? What is the influence we want to take from places that we know are beautiful? 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. 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.”
Lord of Hatred launches on April 28 for Diablo 4. Before then, Season 12 begins on March 10 and is “designed as a more focused, streamlined season” ahead of the new expansion, according to Blizzard. It’ll see the return of Killstreaks–a popular gameplay feature first introduced in Diablo 3–alongside Bloodied Sigils that will increase the difficulty of endgame activity. For more on Diablo 4, you can read up on big endgame changes in the pipeline, how a classic piece of Diablo literature inspired the new expansion, and take a closer look at the new Warlock class.
