Diablo has reached 30 years. 30 years since the first dive into Sanctuary and fighting the lord of terror himself. Diablo IV is kicking off the celebration with its next season, Season of Hell’s Legacy. Encounters with all kinds of Evils of the past and dungeons of history are back for our heroes to fight. Along with them, new powers based on the Prime Evils will be obtainable. We sat down with the Diablo IV team to talk about Season of Hell’s Legacy and all updates coming to celebrate the line’s 30th anniversary and the future of Sanctuary.
The first question was who and what was chosen to represent the series’ 30-year history. Many classic enemies have been fought throughout those years, and some had to be cut. According to Brent Gibson, Game Director, this was a difficult part of developing the season.
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Season of Hell’s Legacy is bringing back what the devs found most fascinating in the old Diablo games.
Gibson said, “[Season of Hell’s Legacy]’s going back through all of the old games and we’re having really deep, heart-to-heart discussions on what we found super fascinating as fans about the previous games. But ultimately I love where we landed, where it was a focus on bringing back the dark wanderers from the past, allowing us to have Deckard Cain.”
He then stepped back to talk about where they started in the decision-making process. “First and foremost we needed to set the stage for a good story. But we knew we needed to end with all three Prime Evils. You know, where’s Diablo? We’ve been hearing that for a very, very long time. How do we do that just coming off of beating Mephisto, and what do we do with Mephisto? I think the team has done a brilliant job at doing this waking nightmare approach to getting all those things in. And so, really, start with the the core, your must haves, and then having fun with the rest of the flavor as we went along.”
So what about recreating those classic, memorable fights for Diablo IV. Taking a Diablo fight and modernizing it is like putting a child in front of an NFL linebacker, with all the class updates and what is even possible to pull off. But you cannot lose the actual nostalgia feel of fighting these bosses once again. That would do them a disservice. Gibson used Diablo 1‘s Diablo fight, now a part of the Season, as an example of what they did to fit the bosses into a modern game.
Hard difficulty isn’t the final form of any boss fight.
Gibson said, “That D1 Diablo, he didn’t really do much. But great nostalgia. The way that I like to talk about it is there’s a feeling you had when you fought them. Make sure we get that feeling. But we have definitely added to make sure that the experience holds up to like a legit fight with a Diablo IV character. You see it in the demo.”
He continued, saying Hard difficulty isn’t the final form of this or any other fight. “Obviously we scale that all the way through Torment 13 and go from, ‘Hey, it was fun to do that too,’ to ‘Oh my God, this is hard.’ So yes, there has been some evolutions as we’ve introduced the the bosses, but it’s done on top of making sure we meet the spirit first.”
Lastly, Season of Hell’s Legacy continues with setup from Season 14. And the story will continue through seasons beyond Hell’s Legacy. But will there be an opportunity for that story to be playable again once the season is over? For example, if a player joins during Season 16+, will they have an in-game opportunity to catch up? According to Gibson, there are no plans at this time, but the resources to get caught up are out there.
Diablo IV: Season of Hell’s Legacy was made by fans, for fans.
Per Gibson, “Yeah, I mean, this is on the top of the discussion. There are no plans right now, at least to to talk about. One of the things I do love is we have a very robust content creator community, and so if you are lost, you can hit that up. So yeah, it is a big, deep game, and we definitely understand players getting stuck into that situation from time to time. But currently, we are developing forward, and we got a lot of content to come. So we’re putting our focus on getting to that new stuff with as much time as we can possibly take.”
After talking to members of the development team, it’s clear that Diablo IV: Season of Hell’s Legacy was made by fans, for fans. Even with changes to boss and dungeon designs, they will trigger that nostalgia while feeling like a modern boss in a modern game. And the road to Diablo V is a long one, with no signs of slowing down until then.
Diablo IV: Season of Hell’s Legacy arrives to Sanctuary September 15th on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.
