Lord of Hatred with Blizzard

And so with the release of Lord of Hatred on the horizon, not only was the horde mode deployed early for players, but when you added up all of the endgame activities, the list was now long and varied. Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, The Pitt, The Tower, The Undercity, Lair Bosses, and more. The initial plan for Lord of Hatred was to introduce something similar in size and scope to The Undercity, the major new activity introduced in Vessel of Hatred.

“There has been this constant, almost skunkworks approach where we’d be thinking about stuff that could be really good for the game and generally made sense,” Zaven adds. “So what we were left with near the end was this idea that we’d have one activity, a brand-new capital ‘A’ activity, and something a little smaller, and that eventually became Echoing Hatred. We had the idea that this new big activity would have a customisation angle. And then, as we took stock of where the game stood, we realised we had seven activities. Do we really need an eighth?”

And when that realisation hit, that the game didn’t need more activities; the focus shifted. “The game needed depth way more than breadth,” Zaven confirms. “The game was already big, so let’s make it as deep as we can.”

Before this revelation, the team knew that with so many existing endgame activities, Lord of Hatred would address the issue of structure. That is, a way to bring everything together, and reinforce the idea that its “endgame” design was for both narrative and hardcore players. With the credits rolling, the big battle with Mephisto over, and Sanctuary saved from complete destruction, what happens next? Well, that would be giving players agency and control, for the first time, with the survivors rallying together to take the fight directly to the remnants of the demonic threat.

This is where War Plans come in, a war table where players map out a strategy and battle plan by leaning into Diablo IV’s many activities. How it works is simple, and you could even describe it as Diablo IV’s Spotify Playlist. Players choose which activities they want to tackle, creating an endgame flow with narrative context and structure that had been missing.

“At that point, when it came to the playlist part [of War Plans], we were already sold, we’re going to do that,” Zaven explains. “But also, that wasn’t enough. I think there is a rightful critique of the game, that we had all these activities, but they were mostly pretty static. Very easy to approach and understand, but not much depth. It wasn’t like they were bad, but if we added activity progression, we could preserve the approachability of our endgame, where it’s easy to get into Helltides or a Nightmare Dungeon. And the trees mean that our core audience, hardcore players, and blasters, know that the endgame is also for them.”

“The modifiers we put in, it was really important that they weren’t numerical,” Zaven continues. “There can’t be a 5% chance of this happening. No, this one changes the way this activity can be played. This one adds The Butcher to The Pitt. Most people haven’t caught onto this, but there’s one node on the Nightmare Dungeon tree that says it affects all Treasure Goblins. And it means what it says: all Goblins in the game. Not all Goblins in Nightmare Dungeons. All Goblins in the game, everywhere, no matter where they show up, are modified by that node.”

Again, it’s expanding the game while addressing pain points. And for War Plans, it also lives up to Blizzard’s long-standing design philosophy or mantra, ‘easy to learn, difficult to master.’ “There are seven activities; set your playlist and go play them,” Zaven adds. “But, as you get deeper into it, you start learning the systems, you get to the depth, you add to the difficulty, and you play around with modifiers. I can’t wait to see all the crazy stuff players come up with.”

The New Talisman Was About Items First, Set Bonuses Came Later

Perhaps the biggest and most notable addition to Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred for players putting together a build is the Talisman system, which includes equipping Charms and Seals. It deepens the itemisation, while also introducing Set Bonuses to the core experience. That feature alone, which defined Diablo 3, has always been a lingering question for the team and players. Does Diablo IV need Set Items? And would that even be possible, considering the game’s existing and expansive itemisation that includes Legendary, Unique, and Mythic Items? Well, as it turns out, Charms weren’t created to address this question.

“The starting point was quite simply: can we expand the surface area that players have to be able to optimise their gear, their stats, and their build?” Zaven Haroutunian recalls. “A very high-level problem, and that’s where we start with these things. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, I want a Whirlwind Set.’ We have a general idea. In Diablo IV, different classes have different pressure points when it comes to optimising stats or gear. We knew going in that you can’t just keep slamming more things onto the ‘paper doll.’ That’s what we call your equipment, your Helm and Armor pieces.”

Adding a new layer was something the Diablo IV team and hardcore players felt was needed, and they also agreed that it shouldn’t override or be tacked onto existing systems in the game. The ‘paper doll’. So the first step was giving Charms their own custom inventory, with the Talisman serving as the storage system. And that really was all the team had going in, as it still needed to figure out what they actually did or added to the game.

“So, you have the Talisman, the storage system, and you put Charms into it,” Zaven explains. “But then, for us, it was figuring out what Charms do and how they can be interesting. From there, we got the Seals and eventually the Sets, and the interaction among those three was a very late addition. We were struggling to figure it out, all these pieces in place, interacting without being convoluted. Once Sets entered the picture, everything was clarified and anchored. I can equip Sets, and they come in different counts. I have a Set of Charms, this amount of slots, and the Seals modulate all this stuff.”

“It also solved a bunch of problems that have prevented Sets from ever making it into Diablo IV,” Zaven adds. “I look at the Talisman as our developers just being really experienced, good at their craft, and good at expanding things, as expansions ought to do. We’re also solving problems along the way. Long-standing problems, deep problems.” And in keeping with the idea of the endgame being this holistic thing, the Talisman is introduced in the opening of Lord of Hatred’s campaign, a rare Horadric item from a fallen ally that you carry into the final battle with Mephisto.

Revamping the Skill Trees Breathes New Life into the Growing Roster of Classes

Going all the way back to Diablo IV’s initial reveal, where the visual tone of its iconic cinematic reveal signalled a return to the dark fantasy of Diablo II, there was a sense that the core experience would blend the depth of that groundbreaking second instalment with the arcade-like, fast-paced combat of Diablo 3. And this could be seen with the game’s Skill Tree system for its playable classes, where power and customisation came together.

“One of the things that we realised with the Skill Tree, was that it was serving multiple masters,” Zaven Haroutunian tells me. “It was trying to offer customisation and experimentation with the two choices, the little twigs as our players called them. But it was also trying to be a source of power. And you can see both of these things in Diablo II and Diablo III. I would characterise the Diablo II Skill Tree as giving me power. I put points in the ranks, they go up, synergies form, it’s a source of power.”

“When I think about Diablo III, the whole Rune system was a source of customisation and expression,” Zaven continues. “We were trying to marry these two things but it wasn’t clicking and one of the things that we eventually realised was, it can’t be a primary source of power. So as we were trying to abide by Diablo II rules, we had early respec costs that were fighting against the idea of the Skill Tree being a place for customisation and expression.”

That respec cost was something the team addressed pretty early on with seasonal updates, but Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred’s revamped Skill Tree represents a complete overhaul for the game’s eight playable classes, including the new Paladin and Warlock. It removes passive abilities, those little sources of power, for a good reason. Power, in Diablo IV, derives from itemisation, your gear, Charms, Runes, and more. Having passives in the Skill Tree, especially with the new Talisman system, meant that item numbers needed to be artificially inflated, which in turn made those passive choices on your Skill Tree relatively weak or minor.

“We were inflating the numbers on gear because it felt like our Skill Tree system was undermining the loot chase, to put it bluntly,” Zaven explains. “So then the discussion became, what do we need from the Skill Tree? Well, it doesn’t need to be a source of power; that’s what items are chiefly for. What’s more fun? Playing a build you don’t want, hoping to find items that let you play the build you do want, or being able to create a build using the skill tree that you like to play, and then making it better as you find items. We believe the second one is more fun.”

Even a casual glance at Diablo IV’s new Skill Tree is enough to showcase that it offers more choice and freedom to support various playstyles, transforming abilities and skills for every class in the game. This means that, in addition to the two new classes, every single legacy class has been reworked, refined, and expanded.

“A lot of it is just repositioning,” Zaven adds. “Making sure everything is in the right place to have the right impact. Customisation in the Skill Tree. Power with the items. Crafting in the Horadric Cube. The Talisman bringing depth. Every skill has options, and every class will reap the benefit of the work we’ve done. It solves a problem while refreshing every class in the game.”

“In the course of development, we’re often faced with solving real problems,” Zaven concludes. “And we don’t always have the ideal solution in front of us. In fact, there’s often no ideal solution. Often, we just have to pick a thing. It’s only after you step back from the stuff you’ve made that your perspective changes and you understand the impact of your decisions, both positive and negative. Really, that’s only when you can get a clear picture of what you’ve actually made.”

Sanctuary is Still Infested with Demons, and the Future is Bright

In Season 11 of Diablo IV, the team presented a complete overhaul of enemy behavior and the strategies needed to overcome them, making each encounter feel just that little bit more engaging and different. Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred’s foundational changes not only build on top of this but also expand on this already well-received update. And that’s just one example that highlights what a foundational or game-changing update can bring to a Diablo game.

It makes the familiar feel new, recontextualises existing systems, and expands player choice and the freedom to create their very own hero, right down to how their Gauntlets should look and what colour works best with that particular weapon.

And with Blizzard completing the story that it set out to tell with Diablo IV, where interestingly enough, Mephisto in wolf-form is the first character you see and hear from in the base game, this new foundation and “endgame” could also point to an endpoint for the game’s story-based, major expansions. As Blizzard isn’t quite ready to talk about the game’s future, short- or long-term, the big question of where to go from here will obviously become a talking point among players in the months ahead.

However, with the initial consensus being that the team has accomplished what it set out to do, the exciting thing is that fans are too busy playing and enjoying Lord of Hatred to stop and even think about Sanctuary’s future. One that will no doubt be brighter thanks to the evolution we’ve seen here. Because, as Zaven summarised, right now, “everything is in the right place.”