The worldstone had been used to make sanctuary, and then later to key and tune nephalem powers and also to drain them and make them "human" over time (though not with complete success as d2 player characters were close to on par with nephalem in power). With Baal touching the Worldstone, he would have eventually corrupted all the nephalem and enslaved them (as it was now keyed to their powers and controlling them); allowing him to have his own personal army of hateful nephalem to go and crush heaven with. This was the entire culmination of plot behind the dark exile - fake a coup, throw out the evils, let them exploit mortal bodies via possession, and eventually have one of them reach the worldstone and touch it to corrupt all of humanity. Tyrael saw the possibilities and realized that while making new worlds would technically be impossible without the worldstone, and the nephalem would regain their powers over time, and that sanctuary would now be open to heaven and hell instead of hidden, it was a considerably better than the alternative of the eternal conflict permanently tipping in one sides direction. This "killed" tyrael (its okay, he got better), and led to the new generation of nephalem and an "open and unhidden" sanctuary.

I love the line "why do things happen as they do in dreams" from the first cinematic. Really emphasized the idea of why he traveled with the wanderer. There wasn't any good reason why, only that something compelled him/made him, much like how your actions don't make sense in your dreams. It shows how strong the Prime Evils are in terms of their influence, particularly on regular people like Marius. You're absolutely right about Marius. He was a great character to follow because he showed a really human view of the story. The player characters in Diablo are very powerful, even managing to defeat each of the lords of hell. Marius though is far from that. He's a regular person, who's also haunted by the past and is trying to forget it. He's very human and relatable. Also I love Mephisto's monologue in the 4th cinematic (where they open the gate to hell). It's just so powerful and terrifying. "And the evil that was once vanquished shall rise anew. Wrapped in the guise of man shall we walk amongst the innocent, and terror shall consume they that dwell upon the earth. The skies shall rain fire, and the seas will become as blood, the righteous shall fall before the wicked, and all of creation shall tremble before the burning standards of hell." It's probably just nostalgia talking, but Diablo 2 is just so good.

the big stone at the end is the Worldstone that Lilith and Inarius used to create Sanctuary. Tyreal destroyed it so it couldnt become corrupted

"So Marius, at last I find you" Always gives me chills, like I'm walking in for the first time. Only to find out later Marius spilled allll the beans to NOT Tyrael.. man memories.

I have always so much loved the way Diablo 2's story is presented. As the player, you are always a few steps behind the story Marius is telling. In the Epilogue cinematic he states: "I heard later that, HE, was defeated. And that the soul stones were destroyed at Hell Forge." He is speaking of you the player. You are the one who defeats Diablo and destroys the stones. Unfortunately Marius was too scared to enter Hell with the final (Baal's) stone. Tyrael searched frantically for Marius following the destruction of the other two stones. But, as we see, Baal found him first. And with his soul stone was able to return to his full strength. Baal then set out for Arreat, persued by you the player. You are betrayed by a man named Nihlathak who gives Baal a relic which grants easy access to Mount Arreat. As you do not have the relic yourself, you are tested by the Ancient Ones at Arreat's summit. This grants Baal the time he needs to corrupt the Worldstone, which will eventually turn Sanctuary into a permanent outpost of Hell. After you reach and defeat Baal, Tyrael arrives and gives you safe passage away after informing you that Baal's corruption can not be undone and the Worldstone must be destroyed. He does not know what consequences will befall the world after doing so.

I have a big critique of the remasters of these cinematics. While they look very good and have far greater graphical fidelity than the originals, the originals had much better direction and atmosphere. They weren't so bright, and there were a lot of shadows to make them feel more unsettling. You could discern less, but feel a lot more. A good example is when Marius looks at Baal and sees Tyrael. In the original, it shows that from Marius' perspective he sees a robed figure with wings and pauldrons, while in the remasters, he just straight up sees a giant armored angel. While there's nothing wrong with how it's presented, it doesn't hit home as hard, because you have to wonder how Marius looked at a robed, hooded man and saw a fully armored, bulky angel. But the biggest downgrade is the Epilogue cinematic, which is blown away by the original. In the remasters, Marius does not seem all that dishevelled and mentally wrecked. He looks like an old, tired and sad man. In the original, you could clearly see just how much the Soulstone had drained Marius. He moves erratically, he constantly shakes, he looks filthy and rugged. When Baal reveals himself to Marius, you can see from Marius' reaction just how much horror and dread this revelation struck with him, while the remastered Marius sort of sits in place and wails with his hands spread open. So while I do appreciate these remastered cinematics for their quality, they don't hold a candle for how gritty, uncomfortable and more subtle the original cinematics are. I do suggest you check them out, even if on your own time, because you'll see there's a big difference in presentation and direction. Good vid, by the way.

Something that i always find fun with the epilogue scene is that if you listen to the voices in the background they are telling Marius not do it, run away etc. etc. implying that the sounds are all in his head. And once Baal kills him they just stop.

The last sceene must have been confusing. What's important is that the big crystal at the end is what Baal, Lord of Destruction was after. Before player character defeats him, he manages to corrupt the World Stone and so Tyrael must destroy it to save the world.

If you want to know who The Wanderer is. He’s the guy that you play from the first game, no matter what class you pick to play as. After he killed Diablo, he picked his soul stone and shoved it into his forehead. This he became his host body.

Marius got dealt the shittiest hand, a totally ordinary person getting involved in the schemes of all the three prime evils at the same time is bound to end in disaster.

Diablo II came out when I was 15. These cinematics are clearly retouched but just as incredible as I remember them. Incidentally, the Dark Wanderer, aka Diabo, is canonically the Warrior from Diablo I, who was retconned into being Prince Aiden, son of King Leoric... Yknow, before the whole demonic possession business.

A nice little Easter egg in Diablo 3 is that the guy who got blown up by Baal you can see his 'blood splatter' on the floor at the entrance of the ruined city

Something that would help you understand the world of Diablo is the Books of Lorath. It does a good job telling the whole story of Diablo.

Just shows how powerful Marius really was despite appearing to be pathetic and frail. It took the players days to fight through the jungles to get into the temple, yet Marius did it faster and survived the meeting of the three prime evils without being detected.

Not 100% sure, it's been a long while so someone correct me if I'm wrong but the city Bhaal was attacking is kind of the home of Barbarians which is a player class and if you picked it, 1 of them ran into hell and "permanently" killed 2 prime evils and single handedly ran through armies of demons to do it. Not saying all of them are that strong, but it's not as easy for him to just run over that town. The first area was like that too, being the home of the rouges another player class. still got overrun but they were not pushovers.

so for context on that last scene, Baal had succeeded in corrupting the Worldstone - the worldstone is what was used to create the world of Sanctuary so...having a super magic rock corrupted by evil wasnt good. So Tyreal had no choice but to destroy it (it is because of this and the angel's inaction that led to Tyreal forsaking his angelic nature in D3)

You already saw the Book of Lorath storytelling videos for Diablo IV, what you saw at the end was the destruction of the worldstone, Part 3 of the book of Lorath 😊

7:11 Glass siting

I give Marius a lot of slack given the poor guy was so sleep deprived it had to have affected his decision making alot.

Been ages since I played Diablo 2. Forgot how interesting it was

There can be NO courage without fear...

Christmas came early.

Ghostrunner 2 Official Trailer might be worth looking at

Now you need to watch Carbot's Diablol series :D

The D2 cinematics were the dopest thing back in the day. Starcraft started the trend of Blizz cinematics, but I feel like they didn't much care for human models there (they're just ugly, and not just cause it's an old game), but when this came out, it was chef's kiss. This is the reason people been saying "Blizz should just make a movie" for years. Of course, we meant Blizz making a movie in-house with their own tech, not striking a deal with admittedly lesser studio like Legendary Pictures for a Warcraft movie that was supposed to be the first of many, but failed so hard we've not heard of any Blizz movie since.

Is this from Dark Lore Dash?

Hey i want to know when are you guys going to see Diablo 4 inarius vs lillith

Diablo 2 cinematics?? Ahhhh baby! "Tyrael": Not your fault? Tell me, Marius, how was it 'not your fault'? That bit gives me strong The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc from 1999 vibes when Joan is talking to the devil(?) in the English prison. I should note that there is a timegap between the Epilogue where Marius gives up Baal's Soulstone and the next scene where Baal has gathered an army and is assaulting a city, which is the starting cinematic for the expansion Lord of Destruction. I have the say that Diablo 2 is peak Diablo still as it expands and adds to what was great in D1. Diablo 3 suffers with tone issues where it's a bit too chirpy and not really as gothic as D1 and D2, which is really needed to set the right mood. D4 gets the tone right, but it suffers with gameplay issues as well as modern corporate cronyism thanks to Activision and Bobby Kotic.

What happened at the end in 1 sentence: The World Stone has been successfully corrupted by Baal, which would have led to the corruption of mankind, so Tyreal made the decision to destroy it.

Gotta tell the other randoms in the comments that D2R with the mod manager is incredible. I'm having so much fun with it.

finally!

Bravo.

Do not underestimate the Evils of Tathamet, or suffer the unholy consequences…

Suggestion sengoku basara games series

Noice

Poor Marius messing things up because he is a good guy and didn't possess any knowledge about the heaven/hell conflict and now getting his "reward" it is sad.

in the diablo universe the battle is between the Light and the Darkness, there's no specific Gods. Humans when they die they don't go to heaven or hell. Heaven wouldn't take them because they think we are tainted by the darkness and Hell doesn't care. Actually when Heaven found out about Sanctuary they wanted to destroy humanity right then, while Hell wanted to use us to win the Eternal Conflict...

The whole story has a lot of plot holes. Like how Did Tyrael not stop Marius from releasing Tal Rasha (Mephisto). Why did they create the bridge for Baal when the "negotiatior" came out. And many others. But it's still is such good story telling.

Skylanders Games and Jurassic Park the game please.

Do the king and queen reply☺️

Diablo 2 is the game to play. If only every game including all diablo games besides 1 could be this good. What happened to gaming. 🧐

Yeeeah, the ending for D2 has always been pretty meh. Basically the players beat Baal and then Tyreal more or less sacrifices himself to destroy the worldstone plunging the world into a new age of darkness. But, also, keeping the agents of hell from using its power. Most of the story of Diablo 2 is experienced through in game dialogue. 28:27 - Holy cow! You've basically described the Diablo series as a whole right there. It's always impressive how much you guys pick up just from watching cinematics. ^_^

Can't even play diablo offline these days 😢

Back when Blizzard cared :) Blizz North

Sadly the Diablo II remaster is the last good thing from Blizzard, I mean the cinematic team still does amazing job like the D4 Cinematic was insane but.... that's all that is left.

Hej

D1 and 2 were malicious art. D3 and 4 are more MCU. And that's less critique and more just recognizing the difference in tone. A lot of people like to separate 4 from 3 in that comparison but it really is more just the better end of the MCU compared to the worse. 1 and 2 made you feel bad. 3 and 4 made you feel driven.

Skip Diablo. 😂