Diablo’s dark world finally gets the villain it deserves

theverge.com:

Diablo IV is the first game in the franchise that, to me, embraced its more thoughtful, vaguely theologically nihilistic roots. That is made manifest in the main villain, Lilith, who departs from the smirking and roaring of her predecessors to articulate a cosmically maternal pain. Aside from everything the game does right in terms of gameplay, I was finally deeply drawn into the franchise’s lore — which, despite its depth, has often been overlooked or downplayed in the previous games.

Diablo has never been one to complicate its prewritten characters, who were more often fleshed-out archetypes than layered levels of self-conscious deliberations. The big bads of the series were out of a teenager’s idea of “hardcore,” dripping off the covers of cheesy metal band albums. With claws and horns and fire, villains smirked and roared their way through the plot, crying out only when players managed to slaughter them.

But what has always fascinated me since I played the original Diablo was the attention to detail, vast worldbuilding, theological contemplation, and cosmic nihilism that made up the world Blizzard created. With Diablo IV, that more mature — as opposed to violently adult — nature is given flesh in the game’s main villain.

Note: this article includes spoilers for Diablo IV.

Lilith is shrouded in somber contemplation. She speaks delicately, softly, always with an undercurrent of maternal concern. This makes sense given she is, in a very real sense, the mother of all humans in this universe: she literally made the world (as in it is a planet with a moon) of Sanctuary. When you finally face her, she isn’t angry at your hampering her goal. She’s disappointed: a gift rejected to play a game we, as humans, do not even