Diablo 4’s Malignant Came Out of Nowhere

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Summary

The Season of the Malignant in Diablo 4 introduces a new form of corruption and enemy types, expanding the game's content for months to come.
Players are tasked with stopping the Malignant infection that randomly appeared after the main campaign, without any prior mention or setup in the story.
It would have been beneficial for the game's story to hint at or introduce the Malignant before its sudden appearance, helping to create a stronger narrative connection.

After spending a month vanquishing Lilith and her forces, Diablo 4 players must now prepare for a brand-new challenge. The Season of the Malignant brings with it a new form of corruption, new enemy types, new items, and even some new stories to enjoy. It is expanding Sanctuary in exciting new ways and giving players months of new content to explore, but the entire concept also feels like it came out of nowhere.

Diablo 4 players spend most of the campaign attempting to stop Lilith from accomplishing her goals. They travel across Sanctuary to fight demons, meet an assortment of interesting characters, and even travel to Hell to try and stop her. It is one of the best Diablo stories to date, but it also never mentions the powerful Malignant corruption that is currently sweeping across Sanctuary. The entire concept seems to have just randomly appeared one day, and that feels like a very strange choice.

Diablo 4 Never Set Up the Malignant

The Season of the Malignant picks up right after the end of the main campaign and sees a new form of corruption appear on Sanctuary. This plague has begun spreading across the land corrupting parts of the world and twisting creatures to its will. It has created new powerful Malignant Monsters and infected spores that the player must put a stop to. Alongside newcomer Cormond, players everywhere will be spending the next couple of months stemming this infection in hopes that they can save Sanctuary from its influence.

This new Malignant infection is allegedly a new form of Lilith's corruption, but it was never hinted at during the main story. Players cannot play the seasonal content until they finish the main story, and the new quest line is supposed to pick up right after the end of the campaign. This means that Lilith has been conquered, Neyrelle has run off, and Sanctuary is mostly safe for now. At least until the Malignant appears randomly one day and changes everything once more.

For something as important as the Malignant, it seems strange that it was left out of the main story. The main campaign never mentions the possibility of an infection like this, there are no hints that it is slowly spreading around, and the entire story seems to only be focused on stopping Lilith. The possibility of this infection should have come up once or twice because, as it is now, feels completely unconnected. There is no basis for it in the story that has already been told, and its danger seems to pale in comparison to that of Lilith.

Not every single story element needs to be set up before it gets introduced, but it would have been nice if Diablo 4's story had at least hinted at the existence of the Malignant before springing it on players. Even a pre-patch questline could have helped build out its lore a little bit before it appeared a month after launch. The mystery of the Malignant is an interesting one, but it could have been a lot stronger with a bit more story.