Diablo 5 takes place in a world where the titular Lord of Terror has already won, taking over Sanctuary and reshaping the world in his own image. For Blizzard, telling this dark chapter of the story means telling multiple stories in parallel: the past, the present, and the future.
That’s according to game director Joe Shely, who tells our friends at TechRadar Gaming that there are “three stories that we’re telling” within the world of Diablo 5. The past story is the tale of how Diablo took over Sanctuary in the first place. The present, of course, seems to consist of the main action of the game, where the familiar world has been taken over by the minions of Hell.
Diablo’s top minions in this desolate world are called Dread Commanders, and they take an active role in reshaping Sanctuary in Hell’s image – hence the future part of the story. “We call it terror forming because these Dread Commanders will actually transform the environment, transform the biome into a version of hell that relates to personal powers and powers at station,” Shely says.
“The procedural world gives us a lot of levers to pull for that,” narrative director Jennifer Hepler adds. “You can go to a place, and it is under the control of the Dread Commander of Undeath, and it’s going to be full of zombies and things like that. And then later in the game, you could return there, and it’s either been reclaimed by humanity or taken over by a different Dread Commander, and the environment will be totally different as a result of that.”
Blizzard’s publicly stated goal for Diablo 5 is to make sure it’s got “the best campaign ever,” and the studio is taking a big swing with the setting to make sure that’s true. The devs are also insistent that a full sequel is necessary because the return of the titular big bad is too big for a mere Diablo 4 expansion. We’ll have plenty of time to speculate on how these choices will pan out, since the game isn’t scheduled to launch until 2029.