Thread by @GilesPink

During the #DiabloIV beta weekend, I noticed a bunch of people asking questions about this moment in the Prologue. I wanted to take a moment and explain how a beat like this gets created and the reasoning behind it. Spoilers within! 1/

So, at this point in the story, we've met Lorath, and we know about the Cathedral of Light, that it's a very stern and powerful organization led by an angel. We've made our way to the capital city of the region, and are stopped before we enter.

The guard demands we do a cleansing ritual before we can enter. Lorath scoffs at it, and refuses. Another guard just tells the first to let Lorath pass as she's had no luck getting him to do the ritual over the years. He enters the city, but we cannot.

So why is this here? Why slow everything down and force the player to do something that on its surface seems so meaningless? There are several things we're doing here:

1. We very quickly teach you about Kyovashad, its people and its customs. Right away you get a strong sense of how important their religion is to them, and by extension you see how powerful the Cathedral of Light is. Everything in Kyovashad revolves around it.

2. You learn a lot about Lorath as a character, and his place in the world. He says that he thinks the ritual is meaningless, right in front of a guard who takes it very seriously. He doesn't care much about insulting the man's beliefs.

We learn that other guards have basically given up on convincing him to do it, meaning Lorath is clearly stubborn, and used to getting his way. He doesn't wait around for you to do it either, he tells you to catch up to him. He feels like he's in charge here.

3. We teach the player that even though they are the protagonist and hero of the story, they are not omnipotent. There are other people, cultures and groups in the story that have their own desires, and you don't get to just blow them off because you're the main character.

4. On a technical level, we needed Lorath to leave the player and enter the city ahead of them. This was the original problem that we needed to solve that created this moment. We were able to turn it into a narrative beat that (imo) very efficiently teaches you a bunch of things.

Important Note: I want to say that there was an entire team of extremely talented artists, programmers, writers and designers working on the Prologue, so I do not want to misrepresent anything here as something I did alone.

I took a page from my time at Telltale Games here when Lorath totally reads you and guesses what you put on the tablet though. Another beat to show that he is extremely observant.

(I am extremely proud of this horse joke I wrote making it in though. Humor in a game like Diablo is extremely difficult to get right without ruining the overall tone!) /FIN