Diablo is a franchise that has spanned nearly three decades, taking over PCs, various consoles, mobile and even the tabletop market. Diablo 4 first launched on June 5, 2023, and features four full seasons under its belt. Now, a year later, the game is ready to take on its first expansion, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, with a whole new map, the Spiritborn class and even co-op dungeons.
Diablo 4 has been met with some questions featuring past seasons, but since Season 4 hit, the game has received nothing but praise, prompting new and old players to jump back in. At the Xbox Game Showcase 2024, Blizzard went a step further by announcing the new Vessel of Hatred expansion, creating even more buzz around the game.
Right after the Xbox Game Showcase, CGMagazine got to sit down in a round table interview with the General Manager of the Diablo franchise, Rod Fergusson and the Game Director for Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, Brent Gibson. CGM wanted to zone in on what goes into expanding a universe that has been around for so long and what we can expect from Vessel of Hatred and the new Spiritborn class.
You’re shipping seasons, and now you’re shipping expansions like Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred. What goes into making sure that you’re keeping content fresh for your players, and what worries do you have when you’re launching content for a 27-year-old property when it comes to not repeating yourself or repeating the right things?
Brent Gibson: Oh, that’s a big question. That’s a super big question. What’s this panel? 20 minutes?
You may only talk to me today!
Rod Fergusson: And we’re done.
Brent Gibson: When you’re designing a game, you’re thinking about how everything plays into each other, right? It’s like flywheels of, like, you’re in this activity, and you get these rewards, and it takes you to this activity, and it takes you to these rewards. And that is a type of design that you can continue to expand upon. There are things that you know that work. And so we take a lot of inspiration from our previous titles and the other games that we play in the world, and we try to think about how they best improve those flows and those slingshots, and the spaces.
So when we think about the expansion [Vessel of Hatred], you go after features that are no-brainers, like, “Yep, this is a really great extension of what we’re doing.” And then sometimes you want to take some risk, and you take a shot, right? If it hits big, great. If it doesn’t, then we learn from that, and we continue to grow. And I think the expansion [Vessel of Hatred] is a big opportunity for us to offer up something new with doing it with the class.
We knew the five original classes were your classic fantasies. It’s like, “Okay, now we’ve got a little bit of breathing room. We know the design space has some openings for us to do something fresh,” and the team gets together, and we talk about what excites us. Because if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing when you go to fill those gaps, it also doesn’t work. So it’s a combination of all those things that get us the formula that we feel.
Let’s talk about Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred specifically now.
Rod Fergusson: Hey. Why not? Sure!
I’m going to give you a twofer, then. First off, what can you tell us about the Vessel of Hatred, both the vessel itself and the expansion? And then what is going to bring players who have been playing these five classes for so long to the new Diablo 4 Spiritborn class, aside from it being shiny and new?
Brent Gibson: I mean, shiny and new helps out a whole lot. I think we’re going to be doing a big deep dive on July 18th. We’re going to go into all the gameplay and stuff along those lines. But you know, when it comes to the class, we’re definitely looking at trying to make sure that it’s a play space that we don’t have right now. If you know the other five classes and you’ve played them, it’s going to feel very different.
Rod Fergusson: And that’s what we know is the number one thing when we do surveys, “What’s the number one thing about something additional in Diablo?” And it’s a new class, a new way to play. So the class serves that.
Brent Gibson: It’s not a remix of the original five or anything along those lines.
Rod Fergusson: And then number two is story.
Brent Gibson: And number two is story, which is a continuation of the story that we started off with on Diablo 4. Lilith was defeated, and Neyrelle had to make her choice. She did, which left her alone with a Prime Evil. What is that going to do to you mentally as a young person, being faced with that much responsibility against the manifestation of evil?
A little stressful.
Rod Fergusson: Kids these days! Kids!
Brent Gibson: And then you get something that we showed like today, which is, I think, a really good representation of the level of evil we’re willing to go to.
Rod Fergusson: And then we have a whole new zone, which is basically, if you think about the regions, Diablo 4 is made up of five regions. This is a sixth region. It finishes the eastern continent, so there’ll be a whole new place. But when you think about the open world of Diablo 4, it’s a whole other region with all the stuff that comes with another region.
We’ve got mercenaries, so we are bringing that feature back, but in a different way with a twist on it. And there’s lots more that we are not talking about yet, but that will really make it exciting to be a part of. But like I said, for us, it was really about knowing that we were meeting those needs. We do a lot of user research and like number one is any new way of play. Number two is I want a new story. The number three is “I want a new place to play.” We made sure we definitely hit those three. Oh.
What is something personal about Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred that you’re excited to see people react to?
Brent Gibson: The Spiritborn. It’s a flow and a feel that, you know, I’ve spent so much time with it that I forget that people haven’t. And going back and playing [Diablo 4] Season 4 as a Necro, and I’m like, “Oh yeah. There’s a different feeling here.” And so I’m excited to be able to show that off here in the coming weeks.
You have to say something else now!
Rod Fergusson: Yeah, I know that’s kind of sucks.
Brent Gibson: Sorry!
Rod Fergusson: It’s okay, actually. I’m a social gamer, so I like to play with others. Most of my gaming is done with somebody on a headset or in my living room. And so there’s a thing we haven’t talked much about, which you’ll see in the datasheet, the cooperative dungeons. And that feature, which we will go in much greater depth in at a later time, that’s actually the thing I’m most excited for.
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred releases on October 8, 2024, and we can expect a deep-dive on the Spiritborn class sometime on July 18, 2024.
