Diablo IV | Realm of Hatred

As if the game was trying to make up for the lack of gore and torment that was transpiring. It was time to march down to the depths of hell and set that world even further aflame with my sorcerer magic. This ended up taking a lot longer than I was expecting.

I found myself having to go back to the Kehjistan region. While I was expecting to go through a vast amount of areas in the region for the main storyline it turns out that assumption was incorrect. We were just looking for the gate to Hell. I had no idea such a terrifying thing was lurking in what was otherwise an unassuming region.

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There were terrible signs that things were going down. The blood rain coating everything in the Caldeum area was a bit of a dead giveaway. Along with you know everything already being dead and expect for evil things I’d have to take out myself.

I guess this blood rain was to wash off all that swamp I keep complaining about. At this point, I prefer the swamp. Thankfully soon I’ll be upgrading a lot of gear as I can only imagine how bad the condition of stuff I’ve been wearing for a few levels now is.

Eventfully we make it indoors. This is where the game decided to start tossing in a bit of a twist. Someone who we at the time preserved to be an angel named Inarius was there.

It was according to some prophecy that Inarius had seen that he would be the one taking out Lilith. He then leads the march into hell with a giant army of people.

Inarius was not that thrilled about us being there. He also did not take kindly to our plans. He took our soul stone right out of our hands. That more or less took away our only plan. Still, however, we marched forward with the others since they were going the same way as we were.

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The fight down to hell was quite a bloody one. I would sometimes be tasked with going ahead, clearing out ambushes on rooftops, and opening gates. I did my best to not get left behind. This was more about a religious thing attacking hell than any one person.

This ended up being quite a slower march down to the gates of hell than I was expecting. There was no rushing ahead and waiting for the group to catch up. They wanted to clear out every single demon and hellspawn they came across. They also seemed to have poor damage if I was not doing all the heavy lifting.

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I was quite impressed once we got to the gate of hell. The thing is quite a work of art. I kind of wish I could get some better views of it that we only got to see while in cut scenes. Regardless, it was a thing to marvel at despite what it represents.

What came next I was not expecting. Quite a long and slow march clearing out the Realm of Hatred. It seems like every single elite or boss I ever killed while in sanctuary was lying in wait for down in hell.

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The map itself was quite massive. There would be no shortcuts. No just charging ahead. If I wanted the heroes I was with to move forward even an inch. I’d have to make sure everything was dead around them.

I was not expecting what felt like an endless fight of the elite after elite after elite. I could not go anywhere without facing off against yet another elite creature. Sometimes there would be many of them in a group.

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You could also tell a team spent some time ensuring this place just looked terrifying. Everything from the moving fire pits off the edges you are walking along. You also just had piles of the slain and a lot of other details.

As much as I wanted to stop and take in the views it seemed like there was an endless onslaught towards us. There were moments down here since it took quite a long time I wanted to take a break. I however had no idea if I left the game if I would have to restart this entire march on hell all over again. So I stuck with it.

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As if an endless horde of elites was not challenging enough as they started to wear me down a bit over time. There were so many named or boss encounters I lost track. It seemed every so many feet of progress down in hell I’d find myself facing yet another challenging foe like this one.

Things as you can expect were also not going so great. The army that was tasked with taking on hell they were getting destroyed. While it seemed like they were trying to hold their own for a while. That would only last so long.

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With pure grit, I slowly made forward progress. By the time I took this screenshot, I had already been down here for over forty minutes. I was not expecting it to take that kind of time. Even more so once you add in how long it took just to get down here.

After a lot more killing later perhaps one of the more impressive things I’ve witnessed in video game cut scenes took place. The screenshots I took don’t give it justice. As they don’t seem to be what felt like I was watching an actual movie.

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I was somewhat fearful my computer might end up crashing at some point. I however did not want to skip over seeing this. Also, there was no indication that you could skip this. It was horrific and breathtaking at the same time.

For a while, I just got to sit there and watch a massive fight unfold. It looked like a true good vs evil battle. Things, in the end, did not end up working out so well for our side.

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This screenshot I took I feel highlights the amazing quality and detail. I know Blizzard has always been known for making some amazing trailers and other things for games. This was however quite crazy.

After a little more fighting the heroes wanted to know where Lilith was. It was kind of strange someone was hauling around the massive Sightless Eye without me noticing it. I was tasked with using it again. This time around however things went quite bad.

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Lilith did not just see me again. This time she trapped me in the dream-like realm of a nightmare. I was to face off for all eternity endless hordes of creatures. Unless I gave into her will. She wanted me to help her.

This felt like it went on for quite some time. Then shocker Mephisto opens a portal and offers me a way out of the nightmare. He in the end wants me to help kill Lilith.

Once I got back to hell I had quite a few more challenging fights ahead of me. I was reaching what looked like the end of this place. I first just had to fight Brol, Elias, Astaroth, and who knows what else.

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Then Mephisto opened a portal so I could get ahead of Lilith. He wanted our plan to capture her to work out. Where he lived is quite a terrifying place.

In the end, we did the old none of you evil people are getting what you want. While we were supposed to use the soul crystal on Lilith it ended up getting used on Mephisto since he was seen as the great threat. That just left one tiny little problem.

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We still had Lilith left to deal with. I was tasked with taking her on all on my own. This would not end up being an easy battle. After I burned my ultimate skill I looked up to see I barely took a chunk of health out of her health bar.

After quite the fight I ended up defeating Lilith, Creator of Sanctuary. Thankfully I was sitting at full health potions at the time and I did not use my ultimate to burn down the last small amount of health she had left.

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As this battle was just getting started. I now had to defeat Lilith as the daughter of hatred. This was quite a more intense fight. Even more so since every so often parts of the floor would become so damaged it would crumble away.

In the end, I had quite a small arena to fight Lilith in. I was saving my fire shield for use during her bigger attacks I quickly learned. Just so I would be as safe as I could be while I danced around dropping hydra, and fire walls, and trying to avoid taking massive damage.

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I ended up defeating her and getting my first “unique” item of the game. I guess they are better than legendary items. I did not care too much about the effect that was rolled on the ring.

Final Thoughts

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Hell ended up being quite a thrilling yet exhausting experience in Diablo IV. Shortly after some stuff I got to see the massive credits for this game. My next thing is to get to level 50 so I can switch over to a much harder realm setting.

It seems I still have so much of this game to explore and do. I can only hope my adventure is just getting started. As in most modern-day ARPGs, it’s all about the adventures really after the main storyline. I can only hope Diablo IV can deliver the goods.

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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Diablo IV.