Blizzard reveals Sanctuary timeline ahead of Diablo IV

In case you're trying to remember just what happened in the previous Diablo titles ahead of the upcoming Diablo IV, Blizzard has a few reminders for you. The official Diablo account shared a capsule timeline of the series' setting, laying out major events in "A Brief History of Sanctuary." Sanctuary is the name of the world the Diablo games take place in.

Check out the timeline in the gallery below, or via the original post.

Set across four images, the Diablo series timeline begins in the distant past, with the formation of the High Heavens and Burning Hells. The two dimensions, populated by angels and demons, begin an unending war called the Eternal Conflict. Sometime during this, the Archangel Inarius meets the demon Lilith, and the two bond. They create the world of Sanctuary, seeking a refuge away from the war. Their descendants would be called the nephalem, and found humanity.

Recorded history in the Diablo timeline begins around the year 964, when powerful demons called the Lesser Evils band together and banish the Prime Evils - Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal to Sanctuary. A human organization called the Horadrim springs up to contain the Prime Evils, and manages to seal Diablo away beneath what would become the town of Tristram. Diablo I and Diablo II both occur within the span of three years, after a hero defeats Diablo beneath Tristram, and Baal mounts an attack on the Worldstone, a great artifact that was used to create Sanctuary. The Worldstone is destroyed at the conclusion of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, and for years adventurers and others hunt down its shards, forming the backbone of Diablo Immortal's story premise.

Diablo III picks up twenty years after the previous games and sees Diablo returning to consume the other Lords of the Hells, becoming a singular Prime Evil. He is slain finally after an attack on the High Heavens. Things go even more poorly for humanity after the Angel of Death waged a genocidal war on humankind in the Reaper of Souls expansion. Diablo IV picks up more than fifty years after Diablo III, and stars Lilith, the original co-creator of Sanctuary itself, as the main antagonist.

Diablo IV launches for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on June 6, 2023.