All Diablo Cinematics In Order (1997-2023) | Asmongold Reacts

Asmongold sits down to watch every Diablo cinematic from 1997 through 2023, and what emerges is less a review of graphics or gameplay and more a meditation on what made the series' storytelling work in the first place. He has never played Diablo 1 or 2—his mother thought Diablo was satanic—so he is encountering these cinematics fresh, and his reactions track a clear thesis: Diablo 2's cinematics worked because they were bleak, sparse, and refused to explain themselves, while later entries traded that atmosphere for spectacle and dialogue, and lost something essential in the process.

The Diablo 2 Formula: Bleakness Without Explanation

The Diablo 2 cinematics, even in their remastered form, hit Asmongold hardest. He keeps returning to the same observation: almost nobody talks. The wanderer has no name. Marius, the narrator, never explains why he follows a man who walks into a tavern, kills everyone, sets the place on fire, and summons demons. "Why did I follow him? I don't know. Why do things happen as they do in dreams?" Marius asks in the cinematic, and Asmongold loves this. "Instead of like, oh, well, there's this grand plan behind everything," he says, "it is what it is." The simplicity is the point. The game trusts the player to sit in the ambiguity.