Blizzard Entertainment, the studio behind the ongoing online dungeon crawlerDiablo 4, took a risk in developing the Spiritborn for the Vessel of Hatred expansion instead of updating older, beloved classes. The DLC won gamers’ attention duringXbox’sSummer Game Fest showcase, delivering a high-quality, intense, and gory cinematic trailer that the community wanted to be turned into afeature-length horror film.
Franchise head Rod Fergusson previously admitted the team’s apprehension about introducing a new class within the expansion, while players called formore Paladin support. Despite acknowledging the request for older class development, the studio believed that trying something new within the upcoming content was necessary to prevent the game from going stale.
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Blizzard Chose To Go Big With The Spiritborn Idea For Diablo 4’s Expansion
In an interview withPC Gamer, associate game director Brent Gibson discussed Blizzard’s decision to dive into the new Spiritborn class for the DLC instead of rejuvenating older classes, even though some players wanted to see their favorites evolve.
Vessel of Hatred’s Spiritborn class is native to the Nahantu civilization and blessed by four Spirit Guardians: the Jaguar, Gorilla, Eagle, and Centipede. Using Vigor as a primary resource, this class wields two-handed weapons and combines physical with elemental attacks in combat.
Blizzard’s goal in developing the DLC was to “break all the boundaries and go big with the idea”, referring to the Spiritborn class. To prevent Diablo 4’s content from turning lackluster, Gibson shared the team’s forward-thinking to progress content out of its comfort zone, saying “The thing we cannot do is say ‘This is too hard, this is too risky, we’re not going to add anything new to the game,’ because the game is just going to die on the vine.”
In tandem with developing a fresh class to keep players engaged in the expansion, Gibson empathized with fans wanting support for past classes, saying, “We say we’re going to do a brand-new class and there are a lot of fans that are like, ‘Well, what about my favorite class from 20 years ago?’ And I respect that because I’m like ‘Yeah, I know right?’ But that’s not the state we’re in today.”
Class designer Bjorn Mikkelson had a silver lining for players who remained loyal to their existing classes, saying, “We get new tech for Spiritborn that now maybe existing classes can leverage to solve their problems.”
“I hope people see why we did this,” Gibson said optimistically regarding the Spiritborn, and thought the class “fills a gameplay space that I think is very fresh for what people want right now.”
Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred DLC will be released on July 30, 2025.
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