One of Diablo 4’s greatest strengths is how much attention it gives to its characters and story. While unexpected, the time you spend fighting alongside Lorath, Donan, and Neyre♚lle while uncovering the mysteries of Lilith’s dark machinations gives a lot of weight to the gameplay, and helps give your character a sense of identity and purpose. Diablo 4 has a compelling narrative structure that has you exploring each region of the Sanctuary and teaming up with a different companion to learn about them while dealing with the consequences of Lilith’s influence. It culminates in the second half when all three companions join together and hatch a plan to stop the Daughter of Hatred from completing her mission. Diablo’s campaigns have always been more about mythology than plot, but Diablo 4’s focus on characters and relationships adds some much needed depth to the story.
I’m a big fan of Diablo 4’s story, and each time I’ve run through the campaign (three times so far) I’ve found new things to appreciate. The pacing drags at times, but the camaraderie between the heroes does a great job holding ev♑erything together. There’s a Fellowship of the Ring quality to the cast that makes the story feel high stakes and consequential, and when all is said and done, the satisfaction you get from mere mortals taking on the lords of Hell is more profound than ever before. It all comes together beautifully, but after multiple playthroughs, there’s still one beat that rubs me the wrong way. Last chance to turn back before major spoilers:
I can’t bel🍌ieve Donan got got by wandering too close to a pillar of handsy skeleton arms. It’s a h෴orribly ill-fitting end for such a powerful mage and accomplished Horadrim. I understand the purpose his death served in the story, but did our dear friend, who had already suffered such great loss, have to go out in such an embarrassingly pathetic way? It doesn’t sit right with me, and every subsequent playthrough has just served to make the moment feel worse, especially when there’s an obvious ending for Donan that would have been far more fitting.
I get why Donan had to die, sort of. All three of our companions make an incredible sacrifice to stop Lilith in the end. Lorath makes a fateful deal with the Tree of Whispers, offering his head to the tree where it will hang for all eternity in exchange for knowledge of Lilith’s position. Neyrelle, having been put in the unenviable position of choosing which demon to trap in the soulstone, Mephisto or Lilith, flees from Hell, condemned to wander Sanctuary looking for a way to safely deal with Mephisto’s soulstone once and for all. When Donan gets stabbed, he slowly, painfully bleeds out in Lorath’s arms, dying without ever getting the satisfaction of knowing that Lilith has been defeated, his final words being a plea to the heavens, unsure if the sum of his deeds were ever truly enough. It’s interesting to consider who has the worst fate between the three of𒅌 them, and the fact that they all sacrificed so much gives the story more weight.
At the same time, hasn’t Donan suffered enough? Donan’s greatest act was defeating the demon Astaroth and trapping him in a soulstone, but he failed to protect the stone from Lilith when sh💛e laid siege to Eldhaime Keep. As a consequence, Donan’s son, Yorin, became Astaroth’s host. Not only did Donan lose his son, but he had to help us defeat Astaroth once again when the demon took over his son’s body, burning his soul from within. It was a cruel fate for the young Yorin, and the most devastating thing that could have happened to Donan. The Horadrim is still dealing with the fallout of his son’s death at the end of the story, so I’m not sure why he needed to die when living with his failur🧜e would have been punishment enough.
Donan’s death was a plot catalyst. He needed to die so that Lorath would be forced to stay behind, so that Neyrelle would be forced to choose by herself what happens to the soulstone, so that she would have an excuse to escape Mephisto’s chamber before Lilith arrived, and so that the party wo🅰uld be separated and she could make her escape to the Western Kingdoms with the soulstone. It was nar🍃ratively necessary, so I don’t take issue with the fact that Donan died, just the way it happened.
In the final flashback, we see Lilith parlay with Astaroth in Hell as he grants her permission to enter Mephisto’s domain. We know that Asteroth is present in Hell and nearby our location shortly before we arrived. Wouldn’t it have been so much more fitting to let Donan confront Astaroth, the demon that killed his son, and let the once-mighty Horadrin die seeking his revenge? It would make sense that the old man wouldn’t be able to hold his own against Astaroth, considering it took three heroes to bring the demon down the first time. Seeing Donan fall to Asteroth’s sword would have set up an eventual rematch for us with the demon too. Instead, Donan stumbles into a pillar and gets unceremoniously shanked by a wacky wavin🦄g monster arm. Not exactly a dignified end for one of Sanctuary’s last heroes.
I appreciated that his death gave us a touching moment between him and Lorath, two old warriors that have built a lifetime of respect for each other, seeing things through to the end. I also appreciate that the epilogue focuses on Lorath’s journey to bur💖y Donan, because it puts a fine point on the human cost of the Eternal Conflict. Maybe I just got too attached to Donan, but I don’t think the man deserved to die in such an embarrassing and anti-climactic way.