We’re going on a tour of the locations of Mephisto’s greatest, or worst, hits in Vessel of Hatred

We learned a bit about Diablo 4‘s upcoming expansion at BlizzCon 2023, and one of the details of note is that we’re going to follow the Lord of Hatred Mephisto right back to his old stomping grounds. Tiffany Wat, Production Director for Diablo 4, gave us further information in a group interview, and we now know we’re getting to go back to the places of Act 3 Diablo 2 and getting to see new places connected to those locations as well as old.

Blizzard Watch and other sites participated in a group interview where Production Director Tiffany Wat got to expand on what we learned from the Vessel of Hatred expansion announcement for Diablo 4. She mentioned that we’re going back to the Kurast Docks we visited in Diablo 2, and that these will serve as our gateway into Nahantu, the zone that used to be called Torajan. Tiffany Wat admits that they changed the name to Nahantu because there’s a real Torajan people out there.

So we want to pay respect to real people. But we wanted to differentiate our fantasy region from there. So you’ll be able to visit the region in Nahantu, that is what the people within Nahantu refer to it as, that is something that we have the opportunity to rewrite lower a little bit, but we feel it was absolutely the right move.

This was mirrored in the Diablo 4 Campfire Chat by Brent Gibson, Associate Game Director, as he discussed the region and why it’s being called Nahantu now. He also made the point that the area is being designed around the verdant green of the jungles and their thick, almost impassable plant life that makes the zone, even serves to connect various parts of the region together with thick vines and giant trees.

It feels a bit like we’ll be going on a hunt through Mephisto’s greatest hits as we follow the path of Hatred through Nahantu. In a way, it’s an interesting opportunity for Vessel of Hatred to show the results of Mephisto’s corruption of the Zakarum faith some seventy-two years after the events of Diablo 2. We got to see a few images of Kurast and the gate into Nahantu that was sealed for 72 years after Mephisto’s defeat in Diablo 2, as well as a quick look at the very chamber that Mephisto was beaten.

Tiffany Wat made a point to mention that the gates to Nahantu have been closed since the end of Diablo 2, which is when the heroes of D2 killed Mephisto on their way to hunt down Diablo, after he’d had decades to corrupt and twist the Zakarum to his liking. Nahantu will likely also house the city of Toraja (likely to be changed in name as well), which was the home of Sanctuary’s second largest Temple of the Triune — since the Triune were so prevalent in Diablo 4‘s main story it’s likely we could end up here as well.

It’s interesting to me that we’re going to see the areas that were so important in Diablo 2 like Kurast and Travincal as part of this expansion, and that we’re going to get to see them not as sidenotes to our quest to kill Diablo but as places scarred by the legacy of Mephisto, corrupted by the Lord of Hatred in ways we didn’t really get to in previous games.

Vessel of Hatred promises a return to locations of note

While this isn’t a complete list, I did want to touch upon several locations we may get to see in Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, both ones that we’ve had hints of and ones that make sense. Given that Nahantu is the name the people from the region call it, I’ll be using that name over Torajan, but I’ll still be calling the city Toraja because I have no alternative name to use as of yet.

Kurast

The former capital of Kehjistan before Caldeum, Kurast was considered by many to be the greatest city in the world before the corruption caused by Mephisto was revealed. Known for its famous docks, the city served not just as capital of the oldest and most powerful surviving nation in the world, it was also the gateway city to the lands of the Nehantu people. Now, after 72 years, the gates into Nahantu are open. The heroes of Sanctuary can follow the path Neyrelle leaves as she struggles to contain Mephisto. Tiffany Wat mentioned in the Campfire Chat that Neyrelle’s struggle with Mephisto is one that no Horadrim attempting to control a Prime Evil in a Soulstone has ever been able to win, and the fact that Neyrelle’s passage seems to have led to the gates to Nahantu being open.

Nahantu

This region called Torajan by outsiders but Nahantu by the people who lived there was used by Mephisto during his corruption of the Zakarum. The Lord of Hatred used his power to cause the jungles of Nahantu to cross the borders and engulf Kurast, and the city of Toraja had Triune cultists that would likely be of use to Mephisto now. Many civilizations and cultures have risen in Nahantu over the years, and even today, peoples like the Tursked Lords — a sect of Druids — and the Umbaru tribes call the region home. Nahantu is also where the foul Khazra goatmen were first changed into demonic man goats, just one of many cultures to fall to the corruption of the Lords of Hell over the centuries. Nahantu has been bleeding because of the actions of their Kehjistani neighbors for millennia, but the events of Diablo 2 were the biggest and most recent incursion of Hell into the area.

There’s a host of regions we’ve never actually been in Nahantu and we may well see some or all of them this time around.

Travincal

Separated from Kurast by a causeway, the Holy City of Travincal was once the center of the Zakarum faith on Sanctuary. Unfortunately for everyone, the city was first built to contain the power of the Lord of Hatred within a Soulstone. Over the years that power seeped free and corrupted enough people that Mephisto could ultimately have the Que-Hagan, the leader of the Zakarum, butchered and take possession of his successor’s soul and body. The site of Mephisto’s previous “death,” we may end up fighting him here — or he may have learned a few tricks over the years and take us somewhere entirely new. We do know we’re going to get to see the depths of the Temple City and the chamber where Mephisto’s Soulstone was originally held as he corrupted the Zakarum.

I’m crazy excited to get to see what Sanctuary in those areas is like, some 72 years after it all blew up because of Demon Lords.