Why does Diablo 4's story feel so weak?
There's no easy way to start this, so we're diving in raw. Spoilers ahead, ye be warned.
Why does Diablo 4's story feel so unsatisfying?
There are several key factors I think affect this, but definitely one more than others. First off, it should be said that the first 2 acts of the game are fantastic. They're tightly written, gripping, and effective in getting an emotional reaction from you as a player. It's in the later acts that the threads of this canvas start to fray and the plot holes appear.
The biggest issues I have with the story really revolve around one character, Neyrelle. From the beginning, I was apprehensive about her role, but it really raised hairs for me at the conclusion of Act 1 with Norath's foreshadowing that she would matter more than anyone else. When exposition dictates how you should feel about a character instead of the game allowing you to make your own opinions about a character's influence, that's always a major red flag. Initially, I thought she was just another side quest character with a little extra dialogue flavor, but overall just a plot device to move the story along. If that's how she had stayed, it would have been fine. But something went sideways, which brings me to my rant today.
Her involvement in the next Acts are fairly minimal, with the exception of one or two plot points, all of which were actually fine, so I'll be skipping over those. It's at the climax of the game that I really become perplexed with the creative direction.
I couldn't stand how it ended with Neyrelle talking down to Lorath like she's some enlightened young soul; instead she just comes off as condescending. She's just a kid, and we're supposed to just take her word that she's going to know what to do with a Prime Evil soulstone?? Nah. It feels way too forced. Now, if Blizzard wanted to keep consistent story beats and set up the next Dark Wanderer (which is obviously what they were going for), why not have Doran become the next avatar of Hate, and Neyrelle is killed instead? It would fit the dark theme better, that the young die and the old carry on, just like how Yorin died. But it's Blizzard, so....
The story was great up until that point. There were still some plot holes, but I enjoyed it overall. It's certainly much better if you play the side missions and not just the campaign; there's so much extra flavor that the main story doesn't involve.
Mephisto was always about the long game. All the Primes were, although Mephisto certainly seemed the most insidious. It does make sense that he's been manipulating events of D4 right from the start, from killing your character's horse and "generously" providing protection, right up to the confrontation of his essence.
I don't think players were disappointed with Lilith being defeated, so much as it feels like the climax was never truly obtained with her storyline. The entire campaign, we're always a step behind, which would have been fine if the inevitable fight with her felt more consequential. Anticipation could have been built up is if you periodically saw her during the campaign, and not just through flashbacks. A good example of keeping the main threat right in front of you is how Arthas was handled in Wrath of the Lich King. He would periodically show up and taunt you during your questing in Northrend, or you would hear his voice. Lilith never interacts with your character at all, she's always gone by the time you show up, except for when she frees Astaroth, and even then, she's only addressing Donan. Elias was a decent 2nd in command, and his backstory had the right gravitas, but he was always going to be just an appetizer to Lilith, and the wind was really taken out of his sails as far as his influence when we do discover that the cult was really for Mephisto. Was he an agent of him all along? It's a good question for the expansion, but the point is that your character interacts with him a lot more than Lilith. The nightmare sequence in Hell is the only other time you deal with her, and by then we're already at the confrontation. How interesting would it have been if your character had been having the nightmares periodically through the main campaign, where she antagonizes you about the past and tries to get you to convert. The blood petal connection only ever seemed to go one way, for you to see the flashbacks. The "connection" was never fully utilized as a story propellent, IMO, just a cutscene instigator.
As for Neyrelle, I get the idea that Mephisto was already influencing her and that's why she left, but the way her dialogue is written or how the voice actor comes across, it's less foreboding and more impetuous. When you see or even read about the Dark Wanderer of D2, it's extremely obvious how burdened Aiden is, how he slowly alienates himself from the townspeople of Tristram before departing and igniting the D2 story. You know he's struggling to maintain control. And I get that the way Diablo operates compared to Mephisto is more brute force compared to sly cunning, but even before Neyrelle takes the stone, she still comes across as a stubborn annoyance, so leaving just seems more in line with her character thinking she knows best rather than a manipulation by Mephisto, even if that character flaw is what made her susceptible to him in the first place.
In general, I'm just not a fan of her character. If she was going to be the next generation of Horadrim, then I could get behind that a little more, but it doesn't seem that's the route that's happening. Instead, Lorath will inevitably join the Tree of Whispers, which will basically cement him as the eternal voice of the Horadrim, so Blizzard doesn't need to worry about ever replacing the exposition character like Deckard ever again, and they get to use Neyrelle as the next host of Mephisto, unless they plot armor and Mary Sue the crap out of her and she somehow breaks free of the stone's influence. If the Primes can reform their essence, who's to say Lilith can't, especially since she "died" in Hell, and when she returns, all she needs to do is take the stone from Neyrelle to finish her initial goal of consuming Mephisto's power.
Very simply, Doran should have become the next Dark Wanderer. His backstory built up everything needed to be the avatar of Mephisto, from Astaroth destroying his home, to losing his son. All the bitterness and hatred he harbored could have led to the perfect culmination of trapping Mephisto in the soulstone.
Instead, we have Neyrelle being shoehorned in as some kind of "uncorrupted" voice of reason by Lorath because....reasons? The cynic in me knows exactly why she was chosen, because Blizzard writers HAVE to have some sort of progressive protagonist being ham-fisted into the story somehow, and a young woman of color is too easy of a choice to pass up. I argue that Neyrelle should have been the one to die in Hell instead of Donan, which not only opens up the path for him to be corrupted by Mephisto, but also fits the world setting in which the young die young, and the old carry on, just like Lorath. Neyrelle's letter to him could have still happened too, as a "just in case I don't make it back" kind of trope.
Diablo 4 is overall a great game for me as a casual player. I don't care about endgame grinding or the most optimized build like most other ARPG players; I've always been in it for the story. As an OG fan of the first two games and Blizzard in general, I thought the story was overall done ok. Ironically, I think the majority of the side quests offer so much more flavor and nuance to the world than the main campaign story. There are narrative plot holes that could have been easily avoided, but none are so jarring as the decision to make Neyrelle a focus for the next expansion. Her character arc is weak, and her impact was always minimal. There are side quests that have more fleshed out characters that you care about far more than the forced affection you're supposed to have for Neyrelle.