A new era dawns for Diablo Immortal after players conquered its eponymous villain, Diablo, in the Shattered Sanctuary expansion at the end of 2024. Although the Lord of Terror’s reign has come to an end, there’s no shortage of problems for Sanctuary and its heroes to tackle. These fresh challenges are joined by a fresh approach from theDiablo Immortalteam, who is beginning to place increased emphasis on player decision-making throughout the game’s unfolding narrative.
Game Rant sat down withDiablo Immortalsenior narrative designer Ryan Quinn to discuss content recently outlined inDiablo Immortal’s 2025 roadmap, particularly its narrative themes per Quinn’s expertise. This year-long narrative arc will center around several distinct factions, and as a relative rarity for theDiabloseries, players will be making some light—but meaningful—choices along the way as they navigate the complex factional dynamics introduced in the Epoch of Madness with Patch 3.3.
Diablo Immortal’s Epoch of Madness Highlights Competing Factions
Beginning with Patch 3.3, players will venture into the eastern Sharval Wilds, where they’ll encounter druids, witches, and townsfolk from Orthrup. Humans being the naturally gifted encroachers that they are, their presence stirs uptensions with the Druidsand Witches who regard the Wilds as their territory—and have competing interests of their own. Quinn goes into detail about how players will interact with these conflicting forces of nature:
“In the first quarter, which I’ll be focusing on, we’re going to be spending most of our time in the eastern part of Sharval. This means we’ll be on the outskirts of the Deep Woods, interacting primarily with rural farmers in the hamlet of Orthrup, as well as the Druids and Witches I mentioned earlier, who consider the untamable Wilds their territory.
The interactions in this quarter will largely revolve around plot and drama. You’ll be working with various people, trying to find allies, gathering information, learning about the nature of the place. In some cases, you’ll be defending them, and in others, you might be backed up by them or even mediating their disputes.”
These contrasting factions serve as a perfect foundation for some player decision-making, although players won’t be making too many of their own calls early on in the Epoch of Madness. Instead, they’ll uncover the drama, learn about this unfamiliar part of the world, and help resolve disputes among the factions. More player agency is set to kick in later in the narrative.
Diablo Immortal Will Have More Impactful Player Decision-Making
It’s exceedingly rare intheDiabloseriesfor players to make any narrative choices. Diablo games are typically authored as linear stories with few, if any, branching paths. Diablo Immortal recently experimented with giving players decisions to make, and the positive reception from this approach has inspired the team to pursue the idea further. Quinn says that toward the end of the quarter, players can expect to make some decisions that may have lasting narrative consequences:
“At the close of this quarter, without giving too much away, we’ll have some light choice-based ambient events. For some members of these factions, you’ll be able to sit down with them and talk about how things transpired in the story of the Writhing Wilds, making recommendations about how things should move forward. This is similar to the choice in World’s Crown but on a much smaller scale, though with a longer-lasting effect. As you start participating in the region, even in small ways, we’re setting the flag for how your involvement might influence how these factions behave or view each other.
It won’t be a massive shift—it won’t radically change the course of the story—but my hope is that it will let players exert a bit more influence on their relationships with characters in the game. This way, the impact of decisions made months ago can come to fruition in future quarters, something we haven’t really done much of in Diablo Immortal before. When we do introduce choices, players tend to respond positively.”
Although he pointed out that the decisions will be “light,” more player agency inDiablogames is certainly welcome. Narrative player agency is a rarity inthe action RPG genre; if well-received, this will hopefully lead toDiabloand similar games exploring player decision-making beyond gear, talents, and skills.
