The opening cinematic for Vessel of Hatred - first shown during this summer’s Xbox Games Showcase - makes my skin crawl every time I watch it. It’s one of the most terrifying examples of body horror I’ve ever seen. Neyrelle, on her journey to destroy Mephisto’s Soulstone, is being tormented by the demon with visions of her dead mother. Neyrelle manages to fight through the deception, only to find herself a prisoner trapped in a torture chamber in her own corrupted mind. In this dark trance, Mephisto has strung her up by her arms and legs, with her arms and legs. Her limbs are split open and all her veins and tendons ar🤡e being pulled out of them like she’s on display in the Bodi✃es Exhibition from Hell. It's enough to make David Cronenberg blush. What a scene.
Cronenbergian body horror isn’t the only inspiration Vessel of ཧHatred pulls from, though. Neyrelle’s relationship with the Soulstone, a cursed artifact that contains the soul of a Prime Evil, reminds one of a very similar story. An unassuming hero goes on a long and perilous journey to unmake an object of power in order to stop a god-like being from destroying the world? Is Neyrelle’s last name Baggins? Because this sounds a lot like Lord of the Rings to me.
These are more than surface-level similarities. In fact, I’m sure the Diablo writers were well aware they were invoking Lord of the Rings in this story because of the way the end of Vessel of Hatred subverts all the expectations you’ve developed by that point because it’s just like Lord of🐻 the Rings. There’s a s😼poiler coming up for Vessel of Hatred’s ending, but first, more parallels.
Diablo 4: Ves💝sel Of Hatred Review - There And Back (To Hell) Again
Vessel of Hatred deepens D✤iablo's lore while st🐲reamlining the end-game in several ways.
We’ve touched on the way the Big Bad is trying to corrupt our hero through the very object they’re trying to destroy, but when you compare what the Soulstone does to Neyrelle to what the One Ring does to Frodo, boy, Frodo got off easy. Mephisto’s Soulstone is one of the most dangerous objects in all of fiction. This thing literally oozes evil that not only corrupts Neyrelle’s mind, but corrupts the world around her too. The black oil it emits poisons the water and transforms the wildlife into monsters. Neyrelle’s journey leaves a trail of horror in her wake while Neyrelle slowly loses herself to its influence. Meanwhile, the One Ring sat at the bottom of a creek doing nothing for a few hundred years, and then gav𒈔e Frodo a bit of a headache. Pfft.
The One Ring turned Smeagol into Gollum, of course, but frankly, Neyrelle would much rather become Gollum than whatever the hell ﷽the Soulstone was about to do to her.
Instead of melting the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, Neyrelle intends to take the Soulstone to Akarat’s tomb within the Vault of Light where the stone can be purified. It’s a bit more complicated, and this isn’t where the Soulstone was originally forged either, but it's the same🐎 idea. If we can destroy this evil object, the Big Bad can’t come back from the dead and kill us all.
We can compare Mephisto to Sauron too. Both villains once possessed godlike power that they used to wage war against the world of men, but were eventually defeated and, for a time, believed to be destroyed for good. As they each began to regain their power, existing in some kind of no🥀n-corporeal form, they relied on trickery and methods of control to furജther their evil agendas. In the end there’s only one thing standing between them and the full restoration of their power: a little girl/little hobbit man.
Our character’s role in Vessel of Hatred is a lot like The Two Towers. Our character has split off from the Ring-bearer (or rather, Soulstone-bearer) at the end of the Diablo 4 campaign, and at the start of Vessel of Hatred we find ourselves dealing with some more immediate threats that sidetrack us away from helping her. We eventually do fi♍nd Neyrelle and do what we can to help her but, like Frodo, the burden is hers to carry and we aren’t able to take it from her.
I know what you’re thinking and you’re right: Why did the Seraph not just fly Neyrelle to the Vaul༒t of Light? Makes no sense.
Where the two stories eventually diverge is what makes Vessel of Hatred so fascinating. Here’s your spoiler warning: When the heroes finally get to the Vault of Light and lay the Soulstone down to be purified, the✃y are suddenly, unexpectedly, betrayed by one of their own. Eru, a Spiritborn Elder who has guided us all through Nahantu, has conspired with Mephisto to steal the Soulstone and Akarat’s body, which Mephisto intends to possess. This whole time we thought the Vesꦓsel of Hatred was the Soulstone, but it turns out Akarat was the vessel all along.
Vessel of Hatred follows a familiar path to Lord of the Rings, leveraging the story beats and iconography to shape its story - albeit in a far more gruesome and terrifying way. But when the campaign ends, we’re in completely uncharted waters. We’re seeing what would happen if Sam betrayed Frodo and brought the One Ring to Sauron. The Soulstone needed to be destroyed at all costs to stop Mephisto from regaining his power, but our heroes failed, so now what? Seeing how much damage the Soulstone alone could do makes it even more terrif♏ying to think about what Mephisto has planned. ‘What if Sauron got the One Ring back?’ is a pretty compelling proposit♈ion, and an exciting jumping-off point for the next chapter of Diablo 4’s story.
Diablo 4: Vessel Of Hatred Rev🐬iew Discussion
With Ves💯sel Of Hatred, Diablo 4 is t𝄹he best it's ever been.
