Diablo 4 Season 2 ending explained: Why were you immune to becoming a vampire?

❘ Updated: 2024-01-18T10:27:12

Activision Blizzard

As Season 2 of Diablo 4 draws to a close, the ending of its story leaves us with more questions than answers. Why did the protagonist not become a vampire? We have a theory as to why.

While the plot of each Diablo 4 season is mostly a standalone side-story, not connected to the overall narrative of the game, Season 2 may have given us a glimpse into an important plot point for future content. It also may tie back to Diablo 3 and Lilith herself. At the start of Season 2’s story, the player character is infected by the vampire curse but rather than turning into a vampire, they instead inherit Vampire Powers and remain human.

The player essentially turns into a Blade-esque being, a daywalker who has all of the vampire’s positives but none of their weaknesses. This confuses their vampire hunter companion, Erys, and the vampire master Lord Zir who was expecting to turn them into his puppet. Instead, the player uses Zir’s gifts against him and eventually defeats the vampire threat, killing Zir and chasing his minions back into the darkness.

Lord Zir was hoping you’d become his thrall, not his executioner.

This takes place sometime after Lilith’s defeat in the story of Diablo 4, as all Seasonal Journey stories do, but the reason the player character remains human is never explained. Erys tells them that they should have turned by now and implies there may be something different or special about the player’s character. We also suspect that this is why they were able to defeat Lilith, why Inarius was prepared to ally with them, and why Mephisto and Lilith both tried to sway the player to their cause.

Now that Season 2 is coming to an end, Vampire Powers will be removed from Diablo 4. While they could always return or be incorporated elsewhere, Blizzard will likely explain their absence as the protagonist no longer having a connection to Zir. Now the master vampire is dead, his minions are scattered and potentially powerless, it makes sense for the Vampire Powers we inherited to begin to disappear. However, it doesn’t explain why our characters were immune in the first place.

Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR Itemization Changes

Did Lilith believe the player was a Nephalem?

Why were we immune to the Vampire curse?

Our theory is that the player character(s) is a Nephalem and this is why they’re so powerful and immune to the vampire curse. While all humans are descended from Nephalem in the Diablo universe, a hybrid of Angel and Demon, some humans are born as true Nephalem, and such beings are feared by both the forces of Heaven and Hell. Vampires were created around the same time as Nephalem, but they are more of an offshoot of humanity that was infected with a demonic virus that turned them into undead bloodsuckers.

Therefore, it stands to reason that a true Nephalem would be immune to the vampire plague but would be able to manifest the powers and gifts it provides. Nephalem are rare in the Diablo universe with Rathma being the first of them. The heroes of Diablo 3 were all Nephalem, but it’s never been confirmed that the player characters in Diablo 4 were.

However, we suspect they are, and that this will be revealed in a later DLC expansion. It would also explain why Mephisto fears them so much and why Lilith was so keen to recruit them, rather than simply destroying them like she did her other enemies. Let’s not forget, that Lilith mourned Rathma, her first child, when he was murdered by Inarius. Did she view the player character as another of her children? It’ll be interesting to see if this gets answered in a later expansion, but for now, that’s our leading theory.