Last week, we had the pleasure of joining the Diablo IV team at Blizzard HQ for an exclusive Class Preview Event. During our visit, we got to hear directly from the game’s leads, enjoy hands-on experience with the Vessel of Hatred expansion and learn everything there is to know about the highly anticipated new class, Spiritborn.
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
Vessel of Hatred is Diablo IV’s first expansion and continues the main title’s narrative. The expansion is centred around the story of Mephisto, one of the three Prime Evils, known as the Lord of Hatred and who also happens to be Lilith’s father. Set in the Torajan Jungles, players will be led to the southernmost parts of Sanctuary to explore a familiar location in an all-new way. Kurast, one of the expansion’s primary locations, was also featured in Diablo II, but according to developers, decades have passed since players have seen this ancient city, and a lot has changed since then.
Introducing Spiritborn
Vessel of Hatred introduces an all-new class to the Diablo franchise that intimately ties into the unique themes of the new expansion. This new class, known as the Spiritborn, is a distinct melee class that combines an array of martial arts with spectacular spiritual evocation to produce a dynamic, high impact and fun combat experience unlike anything Diablo has seen before.
The Spiritborn are an ancient people native to the jungle region of Nahantu who have been called to endure the Trial of Mist, a gruelling days-long test of intrinsic skill and fortitude. Young Nahantu natives begin this trial in the hopes of learning to open their “sight” and becoming Spiritborn, but due to the dangerous nature and intense demand of the tasks involved, only a few succeed. During the Trial, the Spiritborn experience a consuming metamorphosis, shedding their past selves in exchange for passage to their Spirit Realm self, believing that their spirit will be reborn as a powerful animal guardian.
When discussing the origin of the Spiritborn, associate narrative designer, Eleni Rivera-Colon shared that the Vessel of Hatred development team drew inspiration from many different world cultures. Their goal, explained Rivera-Colon, was to build a distinct community-based culture that felt fresh.
Spiritborn Gameplay
Agile and adaptable, the Spiritborn is an energetic and powerful class that uses glaives, polearms and quarterstaffs to shift between physical and elemental attacks and abilities, using Vigor as its primary resource. A key component of the Spiritborn’s skillset is their ability to call upon Spirit Guardians that can transcend the veil of the Spirit Realm and impact the battlefield with dramatic and visually stunning powers.
The Spiritborn embraces four ethereal Spirit Guardians that influence and tailor their unique playstyle:
- Jaguar: Utilising hyper-aggressive fire attacks, the jaguar is characterised by repeated, high-speed blows that ramp up in lethality. The jaguar’s incarnate skill is Ferocity which is a stacking buff that increases attack speed and can reduce cooldowns.
- Gorilla: The gorilla excels in physical attacks and defensive skills, shrugging off incoming damage by focusing on mitigating and blocking abilities. The gorilla’s incarnate skill is Resolve which can be stockpiled to provide additional damage reduction.
- Centipede: The centipede focuses on poisons and debuffs, draining the strength from its goes with poisoning damage over time and disruptive crowd controls.
- Eagle: The eagle offers high mobility skills and lightning-based attacks. Its mechanical focus is increasing movement speed and amplifying evade.
Described by game designer Bjorn Mikkelson, the Spiritborn class fantasy is heavily driven by martial arts and the underlying virtues that each of the Spirit Guardians represents. These two concepts are naturally intertwined with one another with the virtues of the Spiritborn community manifesting as unique Spirit Guardians, and those Spirit Guardians subsequently influencing the fighting style of the Spiritborn who summons them. This, said Mikkelson, is a direct reference to real-world martial arts, the various fighting styles and the idea of redirecting energy in different ways to enhance combat.
The all-new Spirit Hall enables players to select a primary and secondary Spirit Guardian from the above. Each selection offers a unique Spirit-based bonus and the ability to customise the combat, mobility, and visual thematic style of your Spiritborn character. You can further individualise your Spiritborn character with new legendaries and unique associated with the new class.
Spiritborn is exclusive to Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, available October 8, 2024 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC via Battle.net or Steam.
You can check out our full review of Diablo IV here, where we scored it a massive 9/10 by saying, “Diablo IV is an unquestionable win for Blizzard and one of their foundational franchises when it needed it most. An unrelenting commitment to vision, redefined Sanctuary, never-ending player progression, and excellent boss fights are just a few of the reasons Diablo IV isn’t held back by uneven pacing and recycled content.”
