Diablo 4 developers weren’t interested in making the game’s first new class an MMO-grade, World of Warcraft-like, Hunter-esque one where you outsource all the fun to your animal companion.
For the uninitiated, Blizzard Entertainment recently announced that the series is getting a brand new class in the form of the Spiritborn – jungle predators that can call upon Spirit Guardians that take on the shape of jaguars, gorillas, eagles, and giant centipedes to help you bash beasties.
“One of the initial nuggets that was driving a lot of the ideation was that we didn’t want it to be, for lack of a better term, like a pet class,” game designer Bjorn Mikkelson explained when talking about the new class in a recent interview with Gamesradar+. “We always wanted it to be very interwind with like, coming from the core of the class itself, right?” That means the Spirit Guardians won’t constantly be attached to your hip, but rather, they’ll pop up when summoned.
Mikkelson elaborates that the developers wanted it to feel like the player character’s “emotions” were “translating” into what the spirits were doing, “and having that sort of back and forth between the human side and the spiritual side.” Associate narrative designer Eleni Rivera-Colon calls it a “harmonious relationship” between the Spiritborn and the magical, glowy spirits that come to assist you when you call upon them.
Not everything the team first dreamed up made its way into new class, as Blizzard burnt through “like 60” prototype skills while figuring out what “feels fun” for the Spiritborn. That’s not all gone to waste, however, as even the things that “didn’t make the cut” might some day return “in the future.”
For now, check out our massive Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred preview that dives deeper into the Spiritborn.