During the Diablo IV Early Access Beta, the Challenges tab (the equivalent of the World of Warcraft Achievements tab) revealed how many Acts are in Diablo IV, and the name of each Act. Completing each of the Acts grants a separate achievement.
- Prologue: Wandering
- Act I: A Cold and Iron Faith
- Act II: The Knife Twists Again
- Act III: The Making of Monsters
- Act IV: A Gathering Storm
- Act V: Secrets Bartered, Fates Sold
- Act VI: Dance of the Makers
- Epilogue: From the Wound Spilled
The titles don’t really spoil much of what to expect ahead, but now we know that Diablo IV contains 6 Acts, plus a Prologue and an Epilogue. What we experienced from Level 1-25 in Early Access Beta was merely the Prologue, it seems. I completed that Challenge (Achievement) — which revealed what happened with Inarius, Rathma and Lilith, which included several in-engine cutscenes.
- Character meets Inarius (in-game cutscene)
- Vigo and the Character talk after battle in the Necropolis (in-game cutscene)
- Character finds Rathma in the Necropolis and sees a vision of Lilith (in-game cutscene)
- Character meets Neyrelle at the Vault of the Horadrim (in-game cutscene 30 seconds in)
You can watch the Challenges tab in my recent YouTube video (click the image below to launch the video in YouTube).
Keep in mind that the Diablo IV team confirmed plans for Seasons as an ongoing Live service, and multiple expansions. Six Acts for the base game, sounds awesome, considering that Diablo II base game only had 4 Acts; and the Diablo II expansion “Lord of Destruction” merely added one Act (Act V).
Diablo III copied a similar Act structure from Diablo II with four Acts in the base game; and one final fifth Act with Diablo: Reaper of Souls.
To have six Acts straight out of the gate in Diablo IV, spells well for the future of the game in terms of the story the developers want to deliver, and all the content we should expect to see. The Challenges Tab also revealed the name of the Continent that contains Scosglen, Fractured Peaks, Dry Steppes, Kehjistan and Hawezar. This continent is known as Estuar.
It is highly important for the Diablo IV Team to have given a name to this continent, because that means there are plans to add more zones and continents to explore in future expansions. Continents that have never really been given a proper name in previous Diablo games, and not even in printed media (manuals, novels, books, graphic novels, comics).
To wrap up, the Challenges Tab also leaked at least two Bosses that return from Diablo II:
- Andariel
- Duriel
- The Butcher