I thought that Leoric's fall, Lazarus' betrayal and Albrecht's disappearance all took place shortly before the start of the game?

Wirt says, " I don't sell information, and I don't care about some King that's been dead longer than I've been alive."


...what??

According to the Diablo timeline on gamepedia, Leoric arrives in Tristram in 1262 and Diablo is released by Lazarus that same year. Leoric is killed by Lachdanan in 1263, the same year the player defeats Diablo.

For Wirt's statement to be true, he would have had to be born in 1263 after Leoric's execution by Lachdanan, and rapidly grown to his current age in the months before the player arrives on the scene.

..or he simply doesn't know who is King Leoric, because he doesn't care, and his statement is a lie.

Good find bro, more than likely an oversight by the developers.

Possibly throwing a hyperbole at the player? I wouldn't look too deep into it, Wirt is a jerk anyway.

Aw Wirt is cool, half or more of the best stuff i ever found in this game came from him.

A jerk can wear a really cool jacket, but that doesn't change him being a jerk. ;)

Maybe it was dialogue that was leftover from the old original story that they failed to change? Devs were usually better about continuity back then, I thought.

Blizzard has always been hit and miss on continuity, ping-ponging between diligent attention to detail to flagrantly lore-breaking retcons.

Going off of Diablo 1 material alone, Cain's gossip about Ogden suggests that the troubles in Tristram started roughly four years ago, so that's about when Lazarus/Leoric started falling under Diablo's corruption. We do know that Leoric only died only after his son was kidnapped, and other gossip states that Wirt was taken at the same time as Albrecht, meaning Wirt had his experience in the labyrinth either before or at about the same time as Leoric died. All this suggests that Wirt is either being hyperbolic or is simply mistaken.

I never heard that particular piece of dialogue, so this is fascinating to me.

I got the impression Wirt was between eight and twelve years old. For the sake of argument, I'll just say "ten years old."

And for him to have been sent into the dungeons along with the adults, the only explanation would be that he was a "squire" to a knight. Even back in the dark ages, they didn't send literal children into hand-to-hand combat with adults.

Alternatively, it might have been that he was the same age as Prince Albrecht, and was even a friend to the boy. That MIGHT explain why they'd have taken him along... thinking he could help bring out the boy if he was hiding.

In either case, he'd have known, quite well, that King Leoric was still alive. There's simply NO WAY he could not have known that the king, who lived in his own town, was still "alive."

But it may well be that we're taking him too literally. We know that Diablo actually tried to possess Leoric first, and was unable to fully do so, so he possessed and/or seduced the ArchBishop Lazarus, who was no doubt weaker, but was still too strong for the weakened Diablo to fully take control over. And he had Lazarus take Albrecht, because the boy was weak-minded, and totally possessed him.

That's interesting to me. Why was the boy so much easier to take over than an adult? Was he, perhaps, autistic, or the like?

Is it possible that Wirt was actually also targeted by Diablo for possession, but Wirt was just a bit to mentally strong to serve for the weakened Diablo? Is Wirt actually under Diablo's influence when we meet him?

It seems very likely, to me. It does seem that Diablo had a plan throughout the entire first game, and that was to bring Prince Aidan down to him, corrupting him along the way (by tricking him into using dark magic) to allow Diablo to transfer from the younger son of Leoric into the older one. (Yes, the warrior character in Diablo 1 is Leoric's older son, according to Blizzard.)

They sort of failed to explain all this very well, and I suspect SOME of it was "afterthought" after the first game was completed. But it's all official now.

So... it seems that Diablo was realy pulling the strings all along. He used Albrecht to lure Aidan into the dungeons, corrupting him along the way, and consuming enough of Albrecht to gain strength enough to take over Aidan.

And yes, Aidan becomes Diablo's vessel in the second game. Presumably, one of the characters from the second game becomes the vessel for Diablo in the third game... though I haven't played that third game.

Meanwhile, the rogue character from Diablo 1 becomes the first "Boss" you have to destroy in the second game ("Blood Raven"). And the sourcerer from Diablo 1 becomes the second major boss you have to destroy in Act 2 ("The Summoner.")

Blizzard really likes turning playable characters into villains, it seems... (sigh)

It's stated he was kidnapped by demons at the same time as many other children, including Albrecht.

Not quite; Diablo corrupted Lazarus first, who then released Diablo and allowed the Lord of Terror to attempt to corrupt Leoric. (This was later retconned to Lazarus having already been corrupted before even arriving in Tristram)

I think it's more that Leoric in specific was an incredibly strong-willed individual and Diablo was never able to completely eliminate his resistance. Albrecht, lacking the life experiences and years of personal growth to build up that kind of force of will, was a much easier mark. Albrecht was very explicitly the backup plan.

Unlikely; Wirt was tormented by demons and there is no evidence that he was anything more than a victim saved at the last moment by Griswold.

My understanding is that this is the canon.

That or killing them off entirely. Seriously, look at the fate of the commander characters from Warcraft1, Warcraft 2, and Starcraft 1; the majority were canonically killed off between games.

Every time you notice something like that, a wizard did it.