Vessel of Hatred and the new Spiritborn Class

Finally, the biggest new feature of Diablo IV’s first major expansion, Vessel of Hatred, has been revealed. Not only does it mark the series’ return to the jungle lands of Nahantu, but it will also welcome the new Spiritborn class. Protective warriors who draw their strength from their bond with animal-manifested Guardian Spirits, each of which has a play style and customization when combined with each other that will break new ground for Diablo IV players.

And while you can already read our impressions of the Spiritborn class and check out our own nearly two hours of gameplay exploring Nahantu, you’ll want to go a step further and read from the creators themselves when the creation of Vessel of the Hatred and the new class began, why these creatures were chosen as Guardian Spirits, And what players, both new and veteran, can expect from this expansion and this class. To that end, the media who attended Blizzard’s invitation to try out the new content and character sat down in a group session with Stephen Stewart (Associate Class Designer), Bjorn Mikkelson (Game Designer Classes) and Eleni Rivera-Colon, Associate Narrative Designer, who answered all these questions.

To begin, let’s talk about how and when the design of the new Spiritborn Class began to take shape. “Several years. We’ve been working on it for about two years now. Even when D4 came out, we were already deep in development.”

Nahantu is not an unfamiliar region to older players of the Diablo series, as the hero already visited Kurast in Diablo II. However, the spiritualists are a faction that has been kept in the shadows. “It’s a very small community, noted Rivera-Colon. “The Spirit-born are people who come from the land of Nahantu. They are directly connected to it and have this calling to be, but you are not born into practicing the culture. You go through a ritual called the Test of the Mist. And that’s how you become a spiritualist.”

A culture based on respect for nature and the struggle to protect it from any threat, cemented on a foundation of many origins. “In terms of culture, we have really taken inspiration from many different cultures.” explains Mikkelson. “We didn’t want to do one specific thing. We wanted to build a culture that was common and felt fresh.”

Stewart continued: “Each of the minds is driven by virtues and ideas, which influences a different fighting style. And that’s how it relates to that martial culture.”

These Guardian Spirits (Jaguar, Gorilla, Eagle and Centipede) individually represent four very different visions for the Spiritborn, but their choice over other animals to be represented in the game went beyond being “jungle” animals. And even that they will not be the only ones there.

“When we talk about Spirit Guardians, there are many. You’re going to be able to experience them. It’s not just these four. That’s how they are presented in Sanctuary.” (…) “For those particular animals, a big part of it was giving them a fair amount of variety in the types of animals, things like that.”

In this regard, we were particularly intrigued by the choice of the centipede, which obviously wouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a jungle. But for the developers, its presence is more than obvious:

“We wanted to try to bring in almost all the jungle environments, from the canopy to the ground and things like that. It would be very easy if we talked about something just for venom. The snake is very obvious, but the centipede is even more than that. Connect it back to the ground and insects, but also birds and also primates. Creating an eclectic group of minds was something we were trying to do. It was also trying to find something that could fit with the themes. I think it also added a lot of cohesion as we tried to bring the skills together. It gave us a rooted place to work from, where you say, what are the aspects of this individual animal? Well, the gorilla becomes a very offensive, heavy thing. That then translated into what his core skill was.”

With the idea of build customization and the combination of Guardian Spirits came the question of how such a wide range of possibilities would fit with the other classes in the game, which are much more rigid in their design.

“Diablo 4 is based on this idea of the open world and that concept where you’re going to meet other players. We always want it to be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. You want to see other people show up in your Helltides or your events. I think the Spiritborn, you touched on the idea of it being very customizable and having synergy within the class itself. I think you’ll also see that if you start looking at group mechanics and adaptability, there might be a way to support a rogue or a barbarian if you’re doing caves together or something like that, where you might be playing a more defensive role. Not necessarily being a tank, because we don’t exactly do tank specs or support or healing that way, but the idea might be that if you feel like your group is missing something, Spiritborn has a lot in its set to make it fit one of the roles that the group might need.

With such a range of possibilities and such a varied design, I had my own question about whether this would mean any more drastic changes in the design of the enemies that will appear in Vessel of Hatred. To which Mikkelson responded:

“The inspiration and culture within Nahantu is really based on what you might experience in the jungle. Very similar to Spiritborn. The enemies here are new enemies, just like Spiritborn was built for the jungle. Coherently, they are also connected to the story.”

They unfortunately didn’t offer much more detail about this story than what has already been made public, but it’s also part of the fun of discovering it for yourself when Vessel of the Hatred arrives on PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on Oct. 8.