Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
Associate Quest Designer - Blizzard Entertainment
Vessel of Hatred is the first expansion for Diablo IV, the latest installment in the genre-defining Action RPG franchise. As a Quest Designer, I owned and developed side quest content for this expansion. Additionally, I developed a quest for one of the expansion's mercenary characters as well as building out the quest architecture for the Dark Citadel feature.
Slayer's Retribution
(Mercenary Quest)
A Berserker Crone embarks on a quest for revenge against the cannibals who wronged her.
Midnight Jaguars
(Side Quest)
A pair of shadowy jaguars hunt travelers on the road. Someone must slay these beasts.
Dark Citadel
(Feature Backend Quest)
A multiplayer dungeon powered by quest architecture I developed.
Goatman's Bane
(Side Quest)
The scion of a ancient tradition seeks to transform themselves into a peerless goatmen hunter.
The Pit of Anguish
(Side Quest)
Seek a jeweled finger within a pit of damned souls trapped within rotting corpses.
The Ravenous Idol
(Side Quest)
A mysterious idol may hold the key to subduing the gnawing hunger within the Goat Eater.
Slayer's Retribution
Varyana was exiled from her clan of cannibals long ago. Since then, she has reformed her ways yet still seeks revenge against those who wronged her.
Rather than subverting the themes of revenge, Slayer's Retribution plays them straight; Varyana is brutal, and together with the player, you will butcher the most dangerous cannibals in the Dry Steppes.
Dark Citadel
Dark Citadel is a multiplayer-focused dungeon activity introduced in Vessel of Hatred. When this feature was being conceptualized, the team realized that it would need a complex backend architecture developed using our proprietary quest tools to track player progression and rewards. As an expert in this tool, I was assigned to design, own, and implement this framework.
The Pit of Anguish is the darkest quest I have added to the world of Sanctary. In it, players are tasked with recovering a jeweled finger lost within a pit of rotting corpses. Quickly, players realize that while the corpses cannot move, they are still very much alive, begging for release from their eternal torment.
The Pit of Anguish was recognized by cbr.com in their list of 10 Sidequests in Diablo IV That Are Better Than the Main Story.
The Pit of Anguish
Midnight Jaguars
Twin shadow jaguars butcher travelers on the road, and a mysterious exile needs your help to stop them.
For Midnight Jaguars, I wanted to create a tragic folktale. The quest features a trickster god and prominently features the cruel tricks he plays upon mortals. As the quest develops, players uncover more about the strange events that have led to this final confrontation.
Have you ever wondered what the chupacabra would look like in the world of Diablo? For some reason, I did, and so I made this quest!
Part of the fun of developing quests for Vessel of Hatred was having the opportunity to draw upon the folklore of the Americas for inspiration. With the prominence of goatmen in our setting, I wanted to explore the idea of a goat-eating creature that hunts them.
Goatman's Bane
The Ravenous Idol
The Ravenous Idol is a short follow-up quest to Goatman's Bane. By completing it, players resolve the cliffhanger at the end of the previous quest and unlock an activity I created. Upon returning to this region of the world, players can visit the Goat Eater and recruit them as a temporary follower to hunt goatmen together!