Diablo IV's story and all the quests that surround it might be some of the worst I've ever seen in an RPG. They're not bad in the sense they're bugged and unplayable, but it all plays like a giant male humiliation ritual.
This was never prevalent in the previous Diablos, and it was fine having female Blacksmiths in certain towns, female village elders and female-only classes, etc. Almost every quest and character in IV has this weird "man bad" shit about it: If you're hearing a journal entry from a man, 90% of them are about how they failed someone in their family. Almost every male character you come across is either a failure, a prick, an idiot, or a combination of all three. Lorath's a failed drunk monk, Donan's a failed, emasculated Horadrim, Inarius is a bitter idiot who is shown to be gullible and ignorant, the guard escorting Neyrelle is a corrupt idiot, that druid on the tree is a stupid, vengeful prick, and this goes on throughout. An argument between a man and a woman? Well, obviously the man's always wrong. A man is accused of infidelity? Well, he obviously did it and should die. A woman failed at something? Clearly a man set her up to this. A man figures out something? Well, he dies later on or fails to solve the problem.
It's jarring that it hops over to the other side and there's little carryover. Follow some woman as she seeks this brave woman crusader's armour, help the female exorcist with the awful accent as she overcomes demon possession with...plot armour I guess, complete your masculine archetype class quest by answering to the female Chieftain and her female subordinates, start off each new Season with a loredump on how the new female questgiver is so great at what she does and so heckin' wholesome. That is to say nothing of the dross that is Lilith and Neyrelle - the story tries its absolute hardest to make you think that Lilith is somehow a sympathetic character when she's a mass-murdering mother of demons with daddy issues whose only plan is subjugation. Neyrelle is a complete Mary Sue who inexplicably escapes Mephisto's possession without dying, just like that random witch gets to be possessed by Andariel and escape death.
The story sucks. There's no balance to this. It's very obviously overcompensation by Blizzard to counteract the sexual harassment lawsuit made against them, but it wrecks what was once a pretty decent story and universe.
TL;DR: Diablo IV is just so tiresome.
