Diablo Immortal 3.3 Interview – Senior Narrative Designer Reveals the Epoch of Madness

We had the opportunity to interview Ryan Quinn, Senior Narrative Designer for Diablo Immortal, about the upcoming Patch 3.3 and the game’s ambitious 2025 roadmap. The “Epoch of Madness” campaign promises to usher in a year of story-driven content that will bridge the narrative gap between Diablo II and Diablo III while introducing players to new terrors lurking in the mysterious Charval Wilds.

A New Chapter in Sanctuary’s History

Diablo Immortal’s narrative sits between two pivotal moments in the franchise’s timeline. “Diablo Immortal in our mind is kind of like the sequel to Diablo II: Lord of Destruction,” explains Quinn. “It’s really about what happened to the world of Sanctuary after the World Stone was destroyed by Tyrael at the end of Diablo II.”

Following the climactic battle against Diablo, the team wanted to create a more personal story featuring classic characters from the original game. Quinn elaborates, “After fighting Diablo, we really wanted to tell a story that was a little bit more personal. We wanted to use some of these Diablo I kind of standout characters. We wanted to introduce a few kind of smaller choices that the player could make in the story.”

The new storyline will begin the transition from the aftermath of Diablo II toward the events that eventually lead to Diablo III, giving players a unique perspective on this crucial period in Sanctuary’s history.

The Mysterious Charval Wilds

All of this year’s quests will take place in a previously unexplored region called the Charval Wilds, a dense forested area on Sanctuary’s western continent.

“We want to take that opportunity to really mythologize Charval,” Quinn says. “It’s a place that we’ve talked about a lot in the past, but we haven’t actually gone there. So we want to build up the diverse suites of cultures that live in this place, not just the important kind of power factions like the witches and the druids, but also the homesteaders who live in the hamlets near the forest, and the urban dwellers who live in the capital city of Enstig.”

The region has a unique cultural identity, having once accepted the Zakarum religion seen throughout Sanctuary but blending it with more animistic beliefs, creating a distinct cultural aesthetic.

Quinn is particularly excited about the mood of the new zone: “It is spooky, and scary, and lonely, and claustrophobic with the way that the vines kind of form the path for you, which I’m really fond of as like a Diablo 1 fan. I like that claustrophobic kind of hemmed in feeling. It is a visual break from Hell, which I know people see a lot of when they’re playing a Diablo game.”

The Fae: A New Monster Family

“The Fae are our new monster family in the first quarter, and what they are is they’re kind of twisted nature spirits,” Quinn explains. “These are beings that typically hide far, far away in the deep woods and don’t come out very often. They’re only very rarely glimpsed by travelers, and the people of Sharval generally try to appease them.”

The story begins with these normally reclusive creatures swarming out of their hiding places in unprecedented numbers, infesting villages with vines and abducting people. Players will need to discover why this is happening now.

“We’ve got a number of new Fae monsters, melee range, brute style enemies, and they’ve got a pretty interesting gameplay dynamic. They’re fairly mobile, especially the Pale Flock, which are the flying enemies that have a tendency to surround you and swarm in from all sides,” Quinn details. “They’re gross, they’re creepy crawlies, and we have more kind of visions in store for new and different and larger types of Fae monstrosities.”

Albrecht: From Diablo I to Center Stage

A key figure in the year-long narrative will be Albrecht, a character whose origins trace back to the original Diablo game.

“Albrecht is really one of the most central figures, aside from the player, in this story,” Quinn states. “He started out in Diablo 1 as this boy, this son of the king, who was sold essentially to Diablo, was captured by the archbishop in Tristram and taken to be a human host for Diablo.”

Having been freed from Diablo’s control in the World’s Crown storyline, the new campaign will explore what remains of Albrecht’s humanity. “What we want to explore with him through this storyline is what’s left in there. What if his humanity, what if his wants, what if his memories are still kicking around inside his monstrous brain and driving his action?”

Quinn teases that Albrecht will be gathering “like-minded people” around him throughout the storyline, including several notable characters from the Diablo era.

New Gameplay Features in Patch 3.3

Beyond the narrative elements, Patch 3.3 will introduce Diablo Immortal’s first crafting system, giving players more agency over their gear progression.

“Immortal has had a lot of ways to upgrade gear at the blacksmith or with gems for as long as the game has been out, but we’re now rolling out a way to kind of deterministically make some of your own gear,” Quinn explains. “You’ll go out into the world, you’ll find ore nodes, you’ll mine them for resources, you’ll bring those back to a blacksmith, and the rarer ores will allow you to exert a little bit more customization over the type of gear that you’re crafting.”

The update will also feature a new battleground map designed to address player feedback about asymmetrical play. “We’re trying to make a more symmetrical map, something that doesn’t make players feel like they got stuck with attack or defense, a gameplay mode where everybody can participate in the escort gameplay and kind of push the payload forward and things feel a little bit more even in that environment,” Quinn says.

The new map will include interactive elements like a neutral monster in the center that provides buffs to whichever team defeats it, as well as objective-based travel portals that allow players to move quickly across the battlefield.

A Mysterious Ninth Class

While details remain scarce, the roadmap confirms that a ninth playable class will be joining Diablo Immortal’s roster. Quinn shared some insight into how the team approaches new class development.

“I think whenever we come up with a new class, we always kind of go through a lot of the same questions and answers. Is this class a big fantasy that a lot of players would want to take part of? Are we excited about it? But then it’s also kind of for us as designers about finding the gaps in the current game.”

The team considers factors like melee versus ranged abilities, supporting diverse play styles, theme, tone, and visual silhouette. Quinn hints that the new class is “very, very tightly tied to all of those thematic elements” of the Epoch of Madness storyline, describing it as “the perfect class for the third year of Diablo Immortal.” Quinn emphasized how player feedback has shaped the development of Patch 3.3 and the 2025 roadmap.

“Community feedback is everything to us. We’ve factored it in as long as we’ve been making and shipping patches for this live game,” he says. “People have asked us for more story and more consistent kind of quest content after we did a few more off-the-beaten-path, less main quest content at the beginning of 2024. So now we’re delivering four big main quest sections in quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, and quarter four.”

Another Blizzard Crossover on the Horizon and Looking Ahead

Following the success of last year’s Warcraft crossover, another Blizzard franchise will be making an appearance in Diablo Immortal this year.

“We absolutely, absolutely love doing crossovers,” Quinn enthuses. “Whenever we do one of these, we’re trying to be selective with kind of what we allow into the world of Sanctuary. We’re trying to find universes that won’t collide, universes that will blend in kind of a seamless and an interesting way.”

While Quinn couldn’t provide specific details about which franchise would be featured, he stressed that the team approaches crossovers as genuine fans, aiming to do justice to both universes in a way that feels authentic and exciting for fans of either franchise.

As Diablo Immortal enters its third year, the “Epoch of Madness” campaign promises to deliver a more cohesive narrative experience while introducing new gameplay systems and expanding the game’s universe. With the mysterious Charval Wilds, the twisted Fae, the enigmatic Albrecht, and a new class on the horizon, 2025 looks to be an exciting year for Diablo Immortal players.

When asked to sum up the year’s storyline in a tagline, Quinn joked, “I’d probably just rip off Jaws. I’d probably say, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the woods.”

With four major content updates planned throughout the year, players won’t have to wait long to begin their journey into the shadowy h

Download

Diablo Immortal

Release Date: 2022-06-01

Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows

Diablo Immortal™ is a brand-new mobile game from Blizzard Entertainment. A genre-defining action role playing game series set between the events of Diablo® II: Lord of Destruction® and Diablo III®.

Join Us!