DIABLO
RELEASED 1997 | DEVELOPER Blizzard North | PUBLISHER Blizzard Entertainment
Where it all began
When you think of what’s important in a Diablo game, story might not be the first thing that springs to mind. Yet like all Blizzard’s games, Diablo’s mix of monster bashing and looting is built upon a vast lore foundation. It’s a complex web of shadowy creation myths, biblical conflicts between angels and demons, and nations and religions that rise and fall over the millennia.
It’s also highly relevant to the upcoming Diablo IV, the story of which ties into some of the most primordial events in the game’s deep past. So we took a guided tour of Diablo’s history with Blizzard’s writers and loremasters, to better understand the backdrop to Diablo IV’s own dark fantasy tale. Along the way, we also found out how Diablo’s fictional history is shaped, and what new events might reshape this history when Diablo IV is unleashed on the world in June.
The history of Diablo has three beginnings. First, there’s the beginning according to the game’s own lore, which takes place in the deep mists of the past. After eons of conflict between the angels of the High Heavens and the demons of the Burning Hells, the three Lords of Hell, Mephisto, Baal and Diablo, were exiled to the Mortal Realm. There, they sowed chaos among humanity until the Horadrim, a group of magi formed by the archangel Tyrael, trapped these Prime Evils in three soulstones. The Horadrim buried Diablo’s soulstone into the earth, then founded a monastery atop it.
The second beginning comes in 1997, when the original Diablo was released. Enter the town of Tristram, which formed around the ruins of the old monastery, its purpose long forgotten. Enter King Leoric, who rebuilds the monastery into a Cathedral, and appoints a man named Lazarus as its Archbishop. Re-enter Diablo, who manipulates Lazarus into breaking the soulstones, then possesses King Leoric and his son Prince Albrecht, using Leoric’s armies to wage terror in Tristram and across the wider the Kingdom. Enter the player, who arrives in Tristram and begins the long descent beneath the cathedral to confront Diablo.
