When Does Diablo: Immortal Take Place?
Diablo: Immortal latest installment in Diablo Franchise has just been released, the story so far revolves around locating world stones and stopping demons from empowering themselves using the said stones. But the timeline and the setting are a bit confusing for the players, so naturally, one question is frequently being asked. When Does Diablo: Immortal takes place?
Diablo: Immortal Takes place 5 years after the events of Diablo II and nearly 15 years before the events of Diablo III. Diablo: Immortal is at the same time both sequel to Diablo II and a prequel to Diablo III and is supposed to address timeline gaps between the 2 games.
Now that you have the most basic answer it’s time to explore the story and put the events of Diablo: Immortal into context. This will come especially in handy if you are a new player to the franchise.
The Events of Diablo I and Diablo II
The events of the first game are triggered directly by the invasion of Tristram, a town that found itself as a target for Diablo, Lord of Terror, and one of the 3 prime evils. A hero simply known as Stranger came up with a strategy for battling Lord of the terror. He thought of a way to imprison diablo in a soulstone, but since Diablo was a prime evil, in the end simply imprisoning him in a soulstone wasn’t enough. The „Stranger“ plunged the soulstone into his own forehead in an attempt to stop Diablo from escaping.
That same Stranger was ultimately revealed to be Aidan, Prince by birth and eldest son of Mad King Leoric.
Eventually, resisting Diablo’s constant influence proved to be too hard for Aidan and the Lord of Terror managed to corrupt him and assume control of him completely. From that moment onward Prince Aidan was known as Dark Wanderer.
Dark wanderer Ushered the events of Diablo II by freeing Baal, Lord of Destruction, and Mephisto, Lord of Hatred. As these things usually go, a new hero appeared who managed to battle the newly freed lords of everything nasty. But it was all in vain, Ball corrupted the worldstone, also known as „Eye of Anu“. If you are not familiar with the worldstone it’s enough to say that it is an extremely powerful artifact that holds the power of creation itself. Both Demons and Angels are in eternal conflict because of it. According to the Lore, Sanctuary itself was created by it.
The Worldstone in the end will be shattered in the event known as „the great conflict“ – when Archangel Tyrael was forced to intervene due to Worldstone’s corrupted state.
The Events of Diablo: Immortal so far
The story is not fully revealed yet so we can only speak of the events that happened closer to Diablo II. We know that Sanctuary was not destroyed by the events of the great conflict. We also know that Worldstone is shattered but its threat is far from over. With each passing day, shards of the corrupted worldstone are corrupting the world itself. And to top it all, the cultists who appeared are seeking the shards of the worldstone to free Diablo once again.
Worldstone is also being used by demons as a supercharger so they have that going for them at least. The main plot of Diablo: Immortal is to basically locate, collect and put under control those worldstone shards before demons and cultists can abuse them.
So what happens in Diablo III?
I don’t know whether this is a massive spoiler or not but basically at the end of Diablo: Immortal the world should be saved once again. A brief period of stability is quickly ruined by Archangel Tyrael once again who warns about the upcoming arrival of two lesser evils: Azmodan, Lord of Sin, and Belial, Lord of Lies.
Another type of Stone enters the game. Black Soulstone – a gem created by Zoltun Kulle. Black Soulstone’s main purpose is to hold the souls of angels and demons in vast quantities. As these things usually go, Black Soulstone was used to both defeat Azmodan and Belial but at a terrible price. Diablo was resurrected with the Black Soulstone and the new Hero – Nephalem managed to defeat him.
All that manipulation led to Black Soulstone’s ultimate destruction which brought an even bigger mess to clean up. All Evils that were contained within it escaped and the shards were free to corrupt the world. The latter part of the plot is pretty similar to Diablo: Immortal as you probably noticed. This is where the storyline ends so far. We don’t know much about Diablo IV but hopefully, we will have more information sooner.
What’s most important to remember is that events of Diablo: Immortal actually preceded events of Diablo III and are no indication of what Diablo IV will look like.
