This ended up being perhaps one of the more strange regions I’ve been in. Due to the experiences that transpired while working on the main storyline. At some points, it felt like forward momentum was being made. In other moments I was trapped in a swamp and I’ll never get that smell out of my clothing.

The Mount Life

One of the best things early into this region is I now had a horse. So I was still trying to get used to the kind of movement the game has for it. I have to say it feels quite natural to what I was expecting from riding a horse compared to other games. It did not take long before it was just like normal movement in a game to me.

One big thing I noticed right away is there is zero waiting around for the horse to summon before you can ride it. You press “z” on PC and not only are you on the horse it takes a giant charge forward. I can’t tell you how much I love not having to wait around 3 seconds before I can get on a horse in a video game.

They also have a system in place where the horse can get “scared.” If the bar goes up to high you get bucked off. Most times after this happened twice to me I learned I could avoid putting myself in situations that caused this to happen.

An easy way to avoid the horse getting scared is simply by taping the spacebar for a quick boost of speed when you need to get through bad areas. They indicate horseshoes in the UI to show you how many more speeds up you get. They regenerate over time.

Once you do get off the horse there is a short timer before you can summon it again. So getting bucked off could end up putting you into a nasty situation you will have to fight out while you wait to summon again.

I wish now that other ARPGs would have mounted in them. While it’s cool and all these kinds of games normally have waypoints to teleport to town to move around quicker. Most of the time you are often left just running around by foot.

Having a horse now will enable me to go back to past regions and do some things I ended up skipping over. On top of that it should make running side quests a lot quicker.

Overall I’m rather thrilled with the mounting system in Diablo IV. It also looks like they are making mount collecting a thing so I can’t wait to get more of them. I do have one already from being a beta tester.

Hawezar Region Storyline

At first glance, this region felt rather intimidating with how far you had to quick venture into it. I feel the game was doing so to allow the player to get used to traveling around on a mount. Either way, this region had quite an interesting and strange storyline.

I ended up being tasked with two different things to do. I ended up working on one of them till I noticed it was not going to be just a one-off thing. It turns out the soul stone was damaged and we needed it for a future fight to use as a weapon. That would end up requiring a lot more effort than I was expecting.

So I quickly switch over to seeing how much the other branch of the storyline was in this region. It turns out it was also quite long as well. I decided to stick with that one for the time being. We needed to work out why Elias could not be killed.

We ended up needing to find a person named Timue. They lived in what I can only describe as quite a disgusting-looking hut. I felt like I needed a shower to get the grim off me but since this region is quite known for its swamps I don’t think that was going to help me any.

While the game for a little while seemed to be quite tame. It was done with that. The next part had me collecting some eyes to unlock a snake chamber. This is when I started to realize that a big theme of this region was going to be about a giant snake.

If you are someone who hates snakes this is not going to be the place for you. I ended up finding one crawling in and out of walls. It was so massive you did not get to see the whole thing.

It was also not shocking when I ran into the snake queen and took her out. I wish I could say that was the last of the snakes in this region but things were just starting to heat up like my fire magic.

It was then time for a strange experience. Normally if some strange crazy-looking person offers me something. I just say no. I however did not have any choice in the matter to move forward. This would not be the last time either with this person. I’d just say no if they offer you tea ever in the middle of a swamp.

Naturally, after this, the game servers broke! It would be a few hours before I got to return to see just how strange things would get.

I ended up needing to follow a giant snake through a swamp. It was now our new tour guide to getting to a tree of all things. The snake was often blocking the exact path forward. So you would just have to wander around most of the time till you found it again.

After quite a lot of getting lost in a swamp ensuring my boots would forever be soggy. We arrived at The Tree Of Whispers. Perhaps the most horrific thing in the entire game once you start to think about what it is.

So the biggest deal about The Tree Of Whispers is it has gained a lot of knowledge over its existence. It is also willing to share it for a price. Now you might be wondering how bad of something could it ask for?

In exchange for knowledge once you die a bird comes along and pecks your head off your body. It then flies your head to the tree. The price you pay is to be eternally part of the tree as a head on a rope. What you know then becomes part of the collective knowledge of the tree.

I don’t know about you but that price is way too high of one. While I hope to never see the tree again. I got a funny feeling the game is not done with me having to come back and see it.

The only good news is this time around I don’t owe the tree any favors for what it was willing to give up. It turns out that when you can’t be killed the tree can’t collect and it felt rather cheated. As a result, it shared a location even though it had no further information since it could not see beyond that point. How strange indeed.

If you thought that tree was creepy I then had to go find a coffin in the swamp and get into it. It then would sink to the bottom of the sea and take me where I needed to go.

Down in a dungeon, I found myself with Echo of Elias who was not thrilled to see me. Thankfully it did not have any means to communicate with the real Elias. It however did not want to see me succeed.

So what did I need to retrieve while down there to stop Elias from coming back from the dead? Oh you know just a mummified finger that was left there. Thankfully it would get tossed into a fire shortly after having to collect it and nearly drowning to be returned to the surface.

After a bunch of other stuff, it was then time to make repairs to the soul stone. Expect Donna who was the hero who lied about his accomplishment and has become quite weak-minded due to some horrific events. Well, he could not pull it off.

Instead, we had to go back out into the swamp. I had to gather ingredients to make tea. NEVER EVER accept tea in the middle of a swamp. Donna would end up having quite a rough night dealing with his internal demons over this one.

As if that was not enough. a portal during this experience opened up for me to go visit Mephisto. Oh, I’ve not shared much if at all I’ve been having secret talks with Mephisto and the form he perhaps to be seen as well. Well, I have been. He has been trying to persuade me. You will find out in another post if that ends up working out for him.

Thankfully after all that nonsense Donan the Horadric and liar was able to get enough courage to fix the stone. It was time to go off and perform a ritual to attune the darn thing.

At this point, I was starting to have withdrawals. Not from any strange substance while being out in the swamp. As you know the murdering and blood bath of fire rings that normally surround me for every waking moment in this game have been lacking during this part of the game. Yes, all this nonsense had very little killing involved.

Thankfully in the end Elias showed up and would you know it he had no idea we tossed his creepy finger into the fire. Down he would go after a while and some further suffering. The Tree Of Whispers then came and collected his head to be added forever with the rest of them.

Final Thoughts

Snakes, creepy tree, coffin, a finger, and tea, oh my. Just say no to this region! Needless to say with everything I ended up doing so far in this region I had not even worked much on renown. That would have to be something I saved for another day but not today.

For now, I was in the mood to return to Kehjistan. I had at the time no idea the kind of horror I’d be walking into as far as the storyline went.

Other Content

• Diablo IV | Kehjistan Region The Desert Wasteland
• Diablo IV | Dry Steppes Region
• Diablo IV | Scosglen Region And The Event

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Diablo IV.

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^{Originally posted on Enjar Games. Hive blog powered by ENGRAVE.}