The task of creating a new class for the Diablo series, which has stretched for nearly three decades now, is not easy. The newly detailed Spiritborn class, a major component of Diablo 4’s Vessel of Hatred expansion, represents a step forward for Blizzard on its journey to make Diablo 4 and its retinue of job classes more personalized for individual players. At an event held at Blizzard’s headquarters, I sat down with the Diablo 4 team to go hands-on with the Spiritborn class in a slice of Vessel of Hatred and discover its origins.
It’s a zoo out there
The newest class to Diablo will likely remind many series fans of the Monk at first blush with its relentless attacks and nimble movement. That comparison does not last beyond the menu screen, however; the Spiritborn’s connection to the ethereal animals of the region is a different beast altogether. This rare kinship not only allows the class to channel different forms of a fun and ferocious battle style, but opens up personal customization for the class in a way Diablo has never seen before.
Spiritborn, both the class and the character, was born of the jungles of Nahantu. That biome was first seen in Diablo 2 and is known as much for its verdant overgrowth as it is for its connection to the spirit realm. “That was actually our point of inspiration,” Diablo 4 director Brent Gibson explained at the event Digital Trends attended. “We started with the idea that the class should be related to Nahantu.”
From this thought, the team jumped to the idea that Vessel of Hatred’s new class should be a warrior in tune with not only nature, but the spirit realm as well. This realm exists separately from the High Heavens and the Burning Hells as a third and mostly neutral party in Diablo’s eternal war. After the character concept was decided, the narrative team set to work on figuring out why this powerful class has been content to sit things out so far, setting up a story for the Spiritborn to go hand in hand with the new expansion.
“We did a lot of research on the cultures the Spiritborn is based on,” says Eleni Rivera-Colon, the associate narrative designer that helped bring the new class to life. “We reached out to consultants and tried to keep it as respectful as we can to the original cultures.”
The Spiritborn communes with several spirit animals that have real-world analogues, namely a centipede, a gorilla, an eagle, and a jaguar. They represent human virtues and concepts, such as the centipede symbolizing the Samsara-like cycle of life and death. On a more granular level, they also exemplify roles for building your Spiritborn, like the gorilla’s tanklike strength or the jaguar’s immense attacking speed. Communing with these animals individually will give the Spiritborn those talents to use on enemies as presented by an attunement choice in the menu.
What combinations can break the game?
However, Spiritborns actually get to choose up to two of these animals to mix and match their skills and traits so they can customize their skill growth throughout the game. These choices can be as modular as the player demands, walking along whichever tree these animals can bestow. For example, a combination of the jaguar and the eagle creates a fast and highly mobile attacker that flits across the screen using skills to get right up in an enemy’s face and back out of it again. A centipede and jaguar, on the other hand, poisons enemies and disappears from their range like a relentless mosquito.
In combination with loot that can be a major boon to these types of skills, the Spiritborn is a significant stab at letting player agency dictate how their character grows and plays.
“I really want to see what a Spiritborn main looks like,” says Stephen Stewart, Diablo 4’s associate class designer. “What does someone who only focuses on this class do and what combinations can break the game?”
Natural selection
The idea of resonance with an individual’s playstyle being paramount certainly bore out in my own hands-on time with the Spiritborn. Given four prebuilt save files, I initially assumed that I would work better with the jaguar’s quick attacks, but I found this style to be oddly frustrating. The jaguar, combined with the eagle, merely synergized to be a glass cannon that I was unprepared to fire as quickly as the enemy hordes demanded. The skills were designed to get me out of a bad situation that I would have to put myself in to attack, but I ultimately just found myself feeling overly squishy. After repeatedly losing to a fortress boss, two malignant demon brothers intent on cultivating and discharging a deadly airborne disease, I tucked my tail between my legs and returned to town to reconsider my options.
I switched to a different save file with a Spiritborn combining the gorilla and the centipede, which made me an unassailable machine of destruction. Not only could an army of monsters fail to knock me down, but the tank virtues of the gorilla were bolstered as my poison centipede attacks sucked health away from the few enemies that survived my attacks. I felt much more in tune with this playstyle that no doubt had its own strengths and weaknesses and enjoyed my time playing as a Spiritborn.
What was made clear during this play session is that there can be much more to playing as Spiritborn than simply what is on paper. The entire time leading up to playing, I was more than ready to take a spirit-tuned jaguar for a spin, only to realize that it did not fit the style I wanted to play.
There is no simple combination that is going to make Spiritborn a broken class or even make it click for an individual player. The nature of the character demands some degree of experimentation rather than the keys simply being left in the ignition and ready to go like a different class might be. But with the direction Blizzard is going with Spiritborn, it seems quite clear they want to provide the runway for players to figure all that out for themselves.
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred launches on October 8.
