Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred ending sets up a bigger battle to come

Here’s a breakdown of the Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred ending and what it could mean for the future of the game, especially the second expansion. Spoilers below.

By now, you’ve likely seen the ending of Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred, and if you’re anything like Asmongold, you’re feeling a bit confused and frustrated. I was, too, but the more I think about it, the more possibilities it creates, so I’m now quite excited about Diablo 4’s future.

The next Diablo 4 expansion now won’t be what I initially thought it would be. I thought Mephisto would be soundly defeated after consuming Neyrelle and that either Baal or possibly Diablo himself would be revealed as the next big bad. Vessel of Hatred was always going to end on a cliffhanger, but it just wasn’t the cliffhanger we had anticipated.

Vessel of Hatred ending explained

First, let’s recap what happened at the end of Vessel of Hatred. To save Neyrelle from Mephisto’s possession, the Wanderer seeks help from Akarat, a powerful godlike entity that watches over Nahantu, who was once a living person. Akarat lends his power to Neyrelle to save her, then directs her, the Wanderer, and their Spiritborn and Pale Hand allies to his tomb.

Akarat and the Prime Evils are old enemies, so the being plans to contain Mephisto in his own tomb to stop him from being unleashed on Nahantu again. The group is once again attacked by Urivar and his Church of Light zealots, but the Wanderer defeats them and slays Urivar personally, getting some payback from his attack at the start of the DLC.

Upon arriving at Akarat’s tomb, the Spiritborn shaman Eru betrays the group, revealing he made a deal with Mephisto to spare Nahantu when the Lord of Hatred returns to Sanctuary. He apologizes to the heroes and steals Mephisto’s soul stone and Akarat’s human body from his tomb before disappearing through a portal.

Mephisto then confronts the group and hints that the Wanderer may be more than human. Since drinking Lilith’s blood in the base game, the Wanderer has been empowered and is still hearing her calling to him even after killing her. This hints to the audience that the Wanderer is a Nephalem, a human who contains the latent power of both demons and angels – and something both Heaven and Hell greatly fear.

The Wanderer and his allies are cast to Hell, where they battle Mephisto in his wolf aspect. Akarat sacrifices his spirit form to power up the Wanderer, and Mephisto is banished. However, the demon is able to possess Akarat’s human body and escape. Eru is wracked by guilt and demands the Wanderer kill him, but Neyrelle spares him so that he’ll be forced to watch the destruction he’s caused.

The final scene shows Mephisto’s rebirth from Akarat’s body, which is narrated by Lorath, revealing the character is still alive and out there somewhere – and probably drunk.

What could happen next?

A lot of Diablo fans, myself included, expected Mephisto to be defeated in this expansion, with the next one focusing on a different villain. This is what’s happened in past Diablo games, with Baal serving as the main villain of Diablo 2’s expansion and Malthael being the villain of Diablo 3’s. I half expected Mephisto to be a cat’s paw for Diablo or just a pawn in his game – which he still could be.

The main difference is that both these stories happened after Diablo’s defeat in previous games, whereas in Diablo 4, the Lord of Terror is yet to make an appearance. Not only is Mephisto still alive, he’s now more dangerous than ever and will likely play a role in the next DLC. Essentially, not much has changed, so it’s easy to see why some fans are frustrated.

But here’s the thing: Diablo 4 is far more episodic than previous games, and another expansion is planned for 2025, and so on. This time, Blizzard has the opportunity to tell a much more ambitious story, so it doesn’t need to burn through all of its villains one by one in a linear fashion each time a DLC is released. Instead, why not keep them around, let them loose on Sanctuary, and see what storytelling opportunities this presents for a live service game with many years left in the tank?

I’m still confident that Baal and Diablo are coming, he said as much, but having Mephisto around makes things much spicier. Let’s imagine all three Prime Evils return, what then? Are they going to play nice or are we going to see a demonic civil war play out with humanity caught in the middle? Now that’s a possible future that could turn Diablo 4 into something very special, and not an idea that could have been done in earlier games.

Prime Evil civil war

Let’s wind back the clock to Diablo 2, despite their squabbles, all three Prime Evils were mostly on the same page. After possessing Prince Aiden, Diablo freed Baal in Act 2, then the brothers freed Mephisto in Nahantu during Act 3. The reunited Prime Evils then oddly agreed for Mephisto to stay behind to slow down the heroes before he was banished back to Hell.

Diablo was then defeated in Act 4, while Baal got some time to shine in the expansion before being defeated himself. Most of Diablo 3 saw the heroes battling Lesser Evils while Diablo plotted his return, but rather than freeing Baal in Mephisto, he consumed their souls and turned himself into “The Prime Evil”. This was also Lilith’s plan in Diablo 4 and how she proposed to rid the world of all three of her demonic family members.

The point of this trip down memory lane is to point out that after his antics in Diablo 3, Mephisto and Baal have absolutely no obligation to join forces with Diablo – or possibly each other. Mephisto even hinted he’s plotting against his brothers. Lilith’s declaration of war on Hell has already shown that there’s dissent among the ranks of demonkind, and let’s not forget, the Lesser Evils flocked to her banner, sick of their Prime Evil masters.

Therefore, as Diablo 4’s annual expansions continue, we may see various competing factions and multiple shades of grey emerge between who’s good and who’s evil. Having some human bad guys in Vessel of Hatred was also a breath of fresh air. Urivar’s atrocities were far worse than anything Mephisto did. Then, there are the various other factions to consider in future DLC.

Future DLC wildcards

We’ve also got to consider the forces of Heaven. The angels have been conspicuous by their absence in Diablo 4 so far, especially with them giving poor Inarius the cold shoulder. This seems like a wasted opportunity as in Diablo 3 there was a real sense of progress between the angels and humanity. After humans helped defend Heaven from Diablo’s armies when he invaded, even the most human-hating angels began to soften their stance.

As Malthael (the Angel of Death) became a greater threat than the Prime Evils combined in the Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls expansion, this is a faction Diablo 4 really needs to check in on at some point. They, too, have a significant score to settle with Diablo after he tore apart Heaven in Diablo 3.

Let’s also not forget the vampire story from Season 2. While some seasonal villains have been wholly forgettable, Lord Zir and his blood-suckers made quite the impression. The game has gone out of its way to remind us that the vampires are still out there, so there must be a reason why.

Vessel of Hatred hinted rather strongly that Lilith isn’t gone, and with multiple rampaging Prime Evils on the loose, maybe her plan wasn’t so bad after all. If any demonic character is worthy of redemption in the Diablo universe, it’s the Blessed Mother. This could be a fun avenue for future Diablo updates to go down. Season 5’s story also started steering Lilith’s followers down a redemptive path.

After all, they didn’t create such a layered and compelling character like Lilith just to kill her off forever in the base game. Diablo 4 may be gearing up to assemble Sanctuary’s version of the Avengers in future expansions. But as we all know, a compelling rogues gallery is what makes a story interesting.