Blizzard Reveals Diablo V Is Being Developed to Bring Back the Main Villain

Diablo V will be a standalone game because Blizzard states that the story of Diablo’s return is too massive for a Diablo IV expansion.

Blizzard decided to make Diablo V a standalone game because the return of Diablo as the main villain required an expansive story that was difficult to deliver within an expansion.

Executive producer Matt Citterman explained that the team first studied audience expectations:

Who are Diablo players? Why do they play Diablo? What do they want from a Diablo game?

While creating Diablo V, the developers also considered feedback from Diablo IV players and concluded that “some deep structural changes” would be necessary to achieve the desired result.

Diablo is the main villain. Diablo is the one we want to tell a real story about. We want to tell a story that is on par with the story of Lilith* and Mephisto, and hopefully surpass it, and doing that in an expansion just felt wrong. We needed to give him his own game.

The plot of Diablo V will unfold after the victory of the Lord of Terror, as Sanctuary lies in ruins and heroes travel by caravan. Procedural dungeons, the Demon Hunter, and the Monk will return, and the Plague Knight will be introduced as a new class.