Diablo 4: Vessel Of Hatred's Spiritborn Is An "Anti-Necromancer" That's Plenty Different From Druid

Summary New spiritborn class in Diablo 4's upcoming expansion adds an all-new experience in Nahantu jungle.

Spiritborn's power fantasy involves strong bonds with spirit guardians, but not animal transformations like the druid employs.

Spiritborn class offers hybridization, allowing players to combine different guardian spirits for unique and flexible builds.

The Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred expansion is going to be coming soon, and not only is it introducing players to the Nahantu region and continuing the story of Neyrelle, Mephisto, and more, but there is a new character class being added to the game. Recently, Diablo 4's Game Director, Brent Gibson, and Associate Narrative Designer, Eleni Rivera-Colon, graciously sat down to talk about the new spiritborn class and upcoming expansion with Screen Rant. The two provided a deeper look into the idea behind the spiritborn and what players can expect from it.

Players will be able to experience the expansion, including the new class, when Vessel of Hatred is released on October 8, 2024. A perfectly jungle-themed apex predator, this new spiritborn class will provide players with an all-new experience, unlike any class previously seen in the Diablo franchise. It is designed to fit seamlessly with the area of Nahantu and its green jungle experience, and while many have suspected it shares qualities with the druid class, it is actually quite a different style of character, incorporating a martial-arts approach.

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Diablo 4's Newest Class: The Spiritborn

Coming As Part Of The Vessel Of Hatred Expansion

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Screen Rant: So excited for Vessel of Hatred coming up! I'm going to just jump right into my questions. A lot of them center around, obviously, the new spiritborn class. First of all, what can you tell me about the inspiration for this new class?

Brent Gibson, Game Director of Diablo 4: You know when we started off, we had two very specific goals in mind. The first thing was we wanted to come up with something new. If you're looking at the original five classes, we wanted to make sure that the sixth fit its own distinct space, and we had a lot of ideas mechanically that felt pretty good. Also the second goal, we knew we wanted to go to the Jungle and it was really important for all of us that the expansion thematically was all cohesive. So, the brainstorming really started to happen about like, we know what we want to do mechanically here, we know we have the jungles, so what kind of power fantasies exist? We got this piece of concept art, which you've probably seen with the guy holding up the staff with the big snake coming up behind it, and we're like ‘oh wow, okay, what would it mean to summon, like, a spirit god into combat’ and that became a lightning rod for a lot of the work that we did. That was the one thing that was missing which was the power fantasy element. That concept, along with the jungle and mechanics, really drove us to what you see today, which is the spiritborn.

Screen Rant: You mentioned the power fantasy, I know that is a term that comes up in a lot of Diablo interviews. You kind of already touched on this, but what exactly is the power fantasy for spiritborn? Is there anything you can go a little deeper on or does that kind of just sum it up?

Brent Gibson: The one thing that I personally love, is the idea of this class who favors this bond with the spirits of the spirit realm, right? It's kind of like an anti-necromancer, where a necromancer will manipulate souls in spirits, the spirit guardian finds this to be the most precious thing. And so, what does it mean to not only call a god into battle but to have a bond with them? And we've actually built that into a lot of the mechanics and stuff like that.

Eleni Rivera-Colon, Associate Narrative Designer of Diablo 4: It's really interesting because there's been a lot of questions about druid, and how druid transforms into a bear, and we’ve got a lot of animal transformation. The unique thing about the spiritborn is that what you have is this really strong, harmonious connection with this ancient spirit guardian, sort of god, and then this person who they work together toward a specific part of Nahantu and the spirit realm. But what happens is through this devotion of this practice, they get this strength and this power from this god, so it's more of taking energy from this spirit guardian and really harnessing it and then using it and battle. Which is really fun, because instead, what the spiritborns are doing are saying I really need precision and vision, and so they call upon the eagle. What you're having is this power coming through, and it's not that you’re channeling an eagle in the spirit realm you're channeling this god that is manifesting itself as an eagle, because that is the closest thing in the jungle that represents them.

Brent Gibson: We've brought this all the way down to the level of the armor and the markings, as well, right. They're not a class that wears armor to protect their body in combat, they wear the armor to embody and represent those spirits that they have a bond with.

So, we have that concept art piece with the iconic jaguar costume, and then there's the centipede, and then we have this bird. Those were early concepts of us being like, ‘hey, what if they were to masquerade around and move like the guardian and attack like the guardian’, so it permeates the entire class which is where we get to the power fantasy is, being a god.

Screen Rant: So, like you were saying, a lot of people are comparing this to the druid. As far as gameplay mechanics go, I understand you're not transforming into the eagle or things like that, so how is it different? Is it going to be a different set of skills by taking on the eagle, again for example, or is it going to be like the druid only without the visual of transforming?

Brent Gibson: No, it's completely different than the druid once you get a hands-on, this is a very martial arts class. It starts off with a three-hit combo on all the basics. Right out of the gate it just feels very, very different and the powers that are coming through it represent that value that Eleni was talking about. The jaguar is about courage and velocity, so all of its attack mechanics are very much about that, like quick strike, rapid strikes, building up and stacking combos that make you attack faster and faster and faster. Where the gorilla is going to be more about tankiness, 'you hit me and I hit you back.' It's like repercussion type stuff that allows you to hold your ground. These are all things that each of these the guardians have - something so different that we pull from more than what you would see in druid. It's actually way more complex from a combat style.

Eleni Rivera-Colon: There's also a lot of hybridization, so you can really combine the spirits that you’re calling in. Say that you really love the jaguar, but then you do want a little bit more protection and strength. Then you do a build that's jaguar and gorilla, so you get speed, but you also get a bit of the tankiness and a bit of what Brent was talking about. This is great because you're not necessarily just picking one thing. What you're doing now is you're sort of slotting in maybe the pieces that are missing for your build, and you're getting a chance to have more of this flex build that you really want.

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Skills And Abilities For The Spiritborn

Based On The Four Spirit Guardians In Diablo 4

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Screen Rant: So, with the spiritborn, you’re not locked into just one guardian? You can have multiple. So, is it going to hurt a person’s build when they want to min-max and get the best out of it, is it going to hurt them ultimately if they are choosing a little bit from jaguar, a little bit from centipede, a little bit from eagle?

Brent Gibson: Not at all. Matter of fact, obviously, if you want to go all Eagle, go all Eagle, right? And you can really double down on that. But as soon as you get to the class mechanic, we're able to then augment your powers with additional elements from other guardians. If you're all eagle, and then at level 15 you unlock class mechanic and you can choose another spirit, that allows you to kind of layer on some of the mechanics from the centipede or the gorilla. So, if you really like ferocity, but you had specced very much eagle, the class mechanic gives you the opportunity to add that ferocity tag, or the jaguar tag, to the rest of your power sets. The flexibility there is pretty wild. As you’re progressing your character your options and opportunities will continue to kind of grow, and you can situationally respec according to that. There's really no wrong way to spec out this build right now, which I think is very impressive that the team was able to pull that off.

Screen Rant: So, you have got all these really epic creatures: the jaguar, the gorilla, the eagle… why the centipede?

Eleni Rivera-Colon: I know, it's really funny because there is this really great middle ground between like narrative, art, and then class design. It's sort of picking and choosing art design that then comes back and says ‘what about this’ and narrative saying, ‘okay, well narratively, thematically do these fit’ and then class design, ‘mechanically does this fit’, so you've got all three parts. You've got design, art, mechanical pieces, and then narrative pieces. Something that I like to point out, because we do deal with poison with the centipede, and I know that when we talk about these creatures a lot of the time it was that we want to represent everything in the jungle. Not just the big, ferocious creatures that you might see. It’s also from the canopies, you've got birds, all the way to the ground, to the soil that you walk on when you're in Nahantu. And then when we think about the biome, along with poison, along with this idea of life and decay, and then this circle of life, you start thinking about bugs. I know that there was a lot of discussion about what that could look like, what kind of bug that could be, what kind of creepy crawler it could be. I know that when you think of Hawezar, you think of snakes. When you’re in the desert you think of scorpions. I think it was something that you're pulling that is fresh, new, and can really fit thematically into Diablo 4, so it is, in my opinion, a creature that really still fits the theme and the weirdness and the funness that we have as a game. So that's like my beginning to why the centipede.

Brent Gibson: The other thing is, we started with that original concept that was a snake, and Diablo’s got a lot of snakes. We have a whole snake monster family. So that gave us the liberty to move away from it and do something clearly very Diablo, and centipedes are very Diablo in my mind. But another point to what Elani was saying, with picking what's thematically right to convert that into powers… like, originally we were looking at, for strength and protection, we were looking at elephants. If you want to talk about an animal that represents family and protection, the elephant is a big one. So are gorillas. Gorillas are very family-oriented as well. But, from a power standpoint, we had a lot more flexibility leaning into that direction. At the end of the day it is about the powers and making sure that we can make it look really, really cool, and the centipede fit the bill for that.

Screen Rant: It looks amazing.

Eleni Rivera-Colon: I mean it's so cool when it does it's little spew, like spews poison, and it's like moving around, that's pretty fun.

Screen Rant: What is your favorite skill to use as a spiritborn, with any of the four guardians? Basically, what can players really look forward to that’s epic and awesome?

Brent Gibson: Soar is a killer one. We’ve used that on not only your power set, but we're applying it to some of the items that you'll see in game as well, and so some of your items can actually bring some of the spirit abilities onto your build as well. You’ve kind of got a leap that does a lot of extra damage and it gets you around the map. Not only can it get you into the fight and where you're going, but it can get you out. Because sometimes you pull just a little too much, and you're like ‘you know what? I need an escape route’, and so the versatility of soar specifically is fantastic.

Eleni Rivera-Colon: Yeah, I actually agree with soar. Because, I think that even though a lot of the class is very speedy, if you decide that you want to do something with gorilla that is still fast but not nearly as fast as a build like jaguar and eagle, or if you do gorilla and eagle, I think there's a way to still get a chance to have the mobility that you want, which is really helpful in battle.

Screen Rant: Why did you choose to go with this entirely new class rather than bringing back the crusader or something else from one of the previous Diablo games?

Brent Gibson: Yeah, you know, the original five classes pulled from, clearly, the classics of Diablo, and delivering on five of those, we had started the spiritborn before they had even shipped, right? At the time, you were like we know we want to go to this place from a combat style standpoint, but we wanted the opportunity to build out the lore a little bit more. Trying something new, I think, is a responsibility that we have on the franchise in general because if we just keep on rehashing old ground, we're never expanding our universe in a way that can actually really open up the imagination. The other thing was, 'where are we going?' We're going to the jungle, you know, taking some of those archetypes and shoehorning it into that location may not have been the wisest decision to make at that moment. I'm really happy that we decided to go this route because here you now have an apex predator of the jungle. There's no doubt. Now that that's there, we can use that to build out things that you see in the rest of the world, like being able to reference them in the campaign and actually building individuals into the zone.

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Eleni Rivera-Colon: From a narrative standpoint, I think it just tonally and thematically makes sense. In Nahantu, we get to show this new version of it. What has the jungle done to Nahantu? We get to bring out some new things about the jungle. When it comes to a new class, we get the flexibility of doing that too. They sort of mirror each other, this idea of bringing new places, new worlds, to Diablo 4 that maybe we weren’t too familiar with and we get a chance to reexperience. I think this is the perfect way to connect the two.

Spiritborn Will Only Come With Vessel Of Hatred, But Can Be Played Anywhere In Diablo 4

Balanced To Start The Campaign At Level 1, Or Jump Into Vessel Of Hatred

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Screen Rant: Will the spiritborn be locked behind the Vessel of Hatred expansion?

Brent Gibson: You do have to get Vessel of Hatred to get the spiritborn, however, you can play the spiritborn in all the original content. So, this is definitely not one of those things where it's like hey, you have to play through the base game content in order to get to the spiritborn and we disconnect it. Everything is backwards compatible for everybody who buys into it.

Screen Rant: How is spiritborn going to be as far as balance goes with the other classes in the standard gameplay?

Brent Gibson: Yeah, we've taken into account being able to play the original game campaign from level one, and you'll be able to progress and level up your character regardless of class. We want the same experience for the spiritborn. We've also designed this in a way that if you decide to play at level one starting at Vessel of Hatred, that's totally fine. We account for the way the difficulty works in order to give you a great experience. One of the things that we're anticipating is that we get a bunch of people who had played the original campaign but they may not have hit level cap, and when this comes out they may want to play, but their friends might be way ahead of them. You can actually skip ahead if you're halfway through the campaign. You can skip ahead you can join your friends, you can play any class at any level, and you should get a very high-quality experience, no matter how you entered the campaign itself.

Screen Rant: I don’t know if this is something you’re able to talk about, but when Vessel of Hatred drops, how is the experience going to be for players who maybe don’t purchase the expansion? Will there still be a new season of content or something else for them to do, or are they just out of luck?

Brent Gibson: Seasons still continue for those who don't buy into the Vessel of Hatred. We've made sure that the core loop of the game is still 100% intact. So, maybe you're on the fence. Maybe you want to see how things are going, but if you don't have Vessel of Hatred you're going to miss out on the new zone, the new class, all the things that, like, inject a whole other way to experience all the original content. That is what you'd be missing out on, so we really hope that people are like ‘hey, look, continuation of the story of hatred, what's going on with Mephisto, what's going on with Neyrelle?’ You know that we've got a lot of really great story to tell and we've got like a lot of new gameplay coming from this class. I hope people would be excited to jump into it as a result.

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Screen Rant: For both of you, what is your favorite part of the upcoming expansion?

Eleni Rivera-Colon: Probably some of my favorite parts I can't talk about yet, especially since I'm narrative. But in terms of the spiritborn, I think it's the world building of Nahantu and connecting it to the spiritborn class. I think what a lot of players can expect is just this very immersive class that they can learn about the world by playing, and going to towns you can have an appreciation for the class more than you might think. The other classes, you get a chance to experience Nahantu as an outsider. So, I think it'll be really fun.

Brent Gibson: For me, to add to that, we did such a good job at this dark, Gothic game, and going to the jungle it's just different, right? We've done this thing where we've added another color to the palette. I'm really excited about players who have not experienced previous Diablo games to see that and at the same time, we've got nostalgia built in because we're going back to a zone that we referenced in D2R. Our hardest-core fans are going to see that nostalgia layered into it. It's just such an interesting mix that opened up a lot of storytelling opportunities for us that I can't wait to see what fans think of that stuff.

What Will Happen To Neyrelle In The Vessel Of Hatred

Hopefully Not A Repeat Of The Past, For Fans

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Screen Rant: You probably can't divulge this, but as far as the narrative, I always love to make fun of - at the end of Diablo 1, when your character is so stupid and just shoves the soulstone into his head - is there any chance Neyrelle is going do the same?

Brent Gibson: She's definitely struggling with the stone, you saw that in the opening cinematic. I think she’s taking on this burden, like oh my God, you know any rational human wouldn't do it. But that's the interesting notion of someone so young taking on such a huge responsibility. I think everybody can identify at some point hitting an age where they're like, ‘yeah, I'm an adult, I got this” and you're like, 'holy crap I don't have this.'

Eleni Rivera-Colon: I will say that, overall I'm excited to see Neyrelle’s growth and see what happens. We hope that we write things that the players can connect to and doesn't feel a bit insane, but you know, it's a game and we like to have fun. I'm excited to just see what happens to Neyrelle, and what players think.

Brent Gibson: I would love to go back and talk to the narrative designers about the end of Diablo 1. The way that you phrased that, now I’m like, yeah, that’s kinda… why would you do that!

Screen Rant: We are running out of time, but is there anything else that either of you would like to add that I haven’t touched on?

Brent Gibson: This is pretty thorough. I'm just excited to see all of our players come back together in Sanctuary and play again. There's been so many changes over the last year. We love to talk about Season 4 and all the itemization changes, but we've been learning since Season 1. We've been changing, and we've been refining, and we've been honing in on the game as the fans see it, and to have a moment like the expansion where the majority of everybody can come back in and, hopefully, a bunch of new people will start to get curious and jump in too... you know, I can't wait to see what people have to say about it.

Eleni Rivera-Colon: It's going to be great. I’m totally not biased at all.