A Guided Tour Through The Five Regions Of Diablo 4’s Sanctuary

Blizzard’s Diablo IV aims to bring order and safety back into the dangerous and corrupted Sanctuary. The world’s five explorable regions – Kehjistan, Scosglen, Fractured Peaks, Dry Steppes, and Hawezar – offer their own flavors of topography, cultures, quests, and, of course, monsters. Blizzard has gone to great lengths in order to make these areas more enjoyable for players and provide a greater sense of place. 

Diablo veterans have explored regions of Sanctuary before, but this time they’re more than one-note areas highlighting a single climate or element, such as snow or desert. Each one is unique and biodiverse, each with its own biomes and special threats. These realms also blend more naturally together; the lush green of one area gradually withers away into the parched brown of another region’s dry canyon, for example. Villages and residents reflect local cultures, stories, and history. This makes regions more like separate worlds. We spoke to Blizzard to get a snapshot of what these areas have to offer, including video clips highlighting each of them.  

Kehjistan

Kehjistan

The Mojave desert and the Middle East are the visual influences for this arid country. The once-thriving city is now a ruin, hidden beneath sand dunes and peppered with oases. It’s a dangerous place, home to giant scorpions as well as a lot of bandits. Along with Hawezar, Kehjistan is home to the Truine cultists. This faction was previously only mentioned in lore and made its debut in Diablo 3. Blizzard has announced that Diablo III players will be able to view how Caldeum (the capital) has performed in the years since then. While the team doesn’t want to spoil plot details surrounding such an important campaign landmark, it does tease that the situation has been less than great. 

Scosglen

Scosglen

The highlands of Scotland are the inspiration for this picturesque, damp area. This location is perfect for anyone who loves rolling hills and beautiful beaches. You’ll have to keep an eye out for copious amounts of Drowned, undead bodies of souls that perished at sea, roaming Scosland’s coastline, including a particularly large population guarding an abandoned lighthouse at the continent’s peak. 

“At the very end, there’s this huge drowned, almost Queen if you will, called the Sea Hag,” says quest designer Madeleine James. “And she’s, like, three times as big as all together drowned, and it’s just like this, almost bloated mass of body parts, and so that’s a really fun enemy to see at the end of that moment.”

Scoglen serves as the home for the shapeshifting, nature-loving druid class, their college, and a storyline tied to a Stronghold, Diablo IV’s co-op-focused events. Along with giant spiders and werewolves, a faction called the Knights Penitent also has a home here. The already inhospitable and dangerous Shrouded Moors area from Diablo III has been rebranded as the Blood Moors, a not-so-subtle sign the area’s fortunes have somehow plummeted even further.  

Hawezar

Hawezar

A good RPG must have a poison swamp. Hawezar is able to provide that. Blizzard looked at Florida’s marshlands and European swamps as a foundation and populated the zone with poisonous flora and fauna that’s sure to plague explorers. Perhaps the most hideous enemies residing here are the Nangari, new snake-like enemies whose bodies are laden with human appendages and multiple heads. “They’re really grotesque looking,” says senior quest designer and zone supervisor Harrison Pink. 

Hawezar was partially occupied in part by soldiers from the Order of Zakaru. This religion is dedicated to following light and sent its followers to this region to find a holy place. That expedition didn’t pan out, so the crusaders, several of them disillusioned and disgruntled, settled in the town of Zarbinzet. In addition to seeing these armored crusaders patrolling, players will spot several old Zakarum forts partially tilted and sinking into the saturated earth.  

Fractured Peaks

Fractured Peaks

This frigid region is home to the religious – and brutally draconian – authority known as the Cathedral of Light. Loosely based on the Carpathian Mountains, residents that can endure Fractured Peaks’ unbearably cold temperatures (some parts lie trapped in a blizzard) may find comfort in living under the Cathedral of Light’s protection – as long as they stay on their best behavior. 

“They have a big pyre in the middle of one of their cities where they burn sinners, and that’s totally normal and okay for them,” says Pink. 

Other parts of Fractured Peaks aren’t perpetually frozen. Warmer areas are covered in melted snow that, in turn, creates waterfalls that flow into Hawezar’s swampy waterways. In one significant campaign quest, players visit Alabaster Monastery, the Cathedral of Light’s heavily guarded fort tucked away high up on a mountain. It is a hard-fought pilgrimage that players undertake to get there and prove their worthiness. Along that climb, there’s a solid chance you’ll be picked off by Khazra, AKA Goatmen wielding ice magic. 

Steppes Dry

Steppes Dry

This area is located between Scosglen Peaks and Fractured Peaks and features dry grassland, rocky cliffs and rock ledges. Featuring lava rivers, white sandy beaches, and multicolored geothermal pools inspired by Yellowstone National Park, it isn’t the most hospitable location, but a troop of barbarians managed to settle here after the decimation of their former home, Mount Arreat. Cannibal hordes are threatening caravans carrying precious water to cities. Expect to see mercenary groups protecting such transports. The Dry Steppes also features the salt flats biome where people have dug deep into the Earth, something Mueller points out as not being the best idea in this world while teasing a broader story for players to uncover.

Blizzard claims that the campaign is a global adventure, but sidequests will be mainly limited to specific areas. Don’t expect to pick up a mission in Hawezar that wraps up in Fractured Peaks. Sidequests focus on fleshing out each region’s stories and hardships, giving players an intimate look into the day-to-day lives of their inhabitants to complement the broader campaign narrative. Each region has its own tile set, while the specific monster families of each dungeon use a particular element. You will find more lightning-based enemies in areas that are dryer.  

Diablo IV may be a return to the uber-dark tone and aesthetics of the first two entries, but Blizzard knows that its world can’t be one of constant sadness. Incorporating a variety of art directions in each region creates a more artistically diverse Sanctuary, one that players will feel inspired to step into no matter how dangerous it may be.

“It can be really easy to fall into that doom and gloom hole of darkness all the time,” says Pink. “But if you don’t have some glimmers of life, some glimmers of hope and characters that you can actually care about, you’re like, ‘why am I putting all this effort into saving Sanctuary from Lillith if everything just sucks all the time?’ So giving you some real sparks of humanity that you can hook into as a player to emotionally connect to is super, super important to us as a team.”

Diablo IV will be available for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on June 6. Open beta for Diablo IV will run March 24-26.