The Diablo series has featured over a dozen different character classes, some of which will be making a comeback in Diablo 4. Meanwhile, there are a few character classes from the series that haven't resurfaced since Diablo 2, like the spear-wielding Amazon. Longtime fans of the series may have a particular class or playstyle they're fond of, and it can be disheartening to find that one's favorite class isn't present in the latest entry.
Since Diablo 4's build customization is more detailed and open to experimentation than in past games, Game ZXC asked Diablo 4 Lead Class Designer Adam Jackson in a group interview if players will be able to come up with builds that are analogous to the playstyles of those "missing" classes from the roster. Jackson said that players may find some crossover possibilities, but that it's important for there to be room for the game to potentially add new classes in the future.
Diablo 4 Doesn't Want to Recycle Too Much Material
While each Diablo game has at least one class that was present elsewhere in the series, the roster tends to be fresh with each entry other than a few archetypal similarities like "spellcaster" and "warrior." Even among archetypes, the class fantasy and specific playstyle can vary enough that it doesn't feel like a complete copy-and-paste. Jackson says that it's important for Diablo 4's class design to strike a balance between revisiting fan-favorite past ideas with introducing brand-new ones.
One of the things that we have to balance whenever we make a new Diablo game or a new class, build, or fantasy is this idea that we want to balance the familiar with the new. We want people to have something they can identify with from previous games or playstyles, and then we also have to create new things because we have to make our game new and exciting and have other fantasies to chase.
As far as chasing playstyles or fantasies of classes that existed before but aren't in our game directly, it is a fine line because we want to balance the old and the new, like I said. I think you can find some aspects of that in certain ways that our classes play, like for example our Rogue has a lot of similarities to what the Demon Hunter did in Diablo 3. There's a lot of arrow-based archer fantasy and combat, they move around the battlefield really quickly and those kinds of things.
Although Diablo 4's Rogue bears a few similarities to Diablo 3's Demon Hunter, it's still very much its own class and could still coexist with the Demon Hunter on a class roster. Diehard fans of the Demon Hunter's playstyle won't really be able to fully replicate the class with Rogue builds, and this is a deliberate design choice according to Jackson.
Diablo 4 Leaves Room For Future Class Additions
So far, every mainline Diablo game has introduced at least one new class post-release, with future Diablo Immortal updates planned to introduce new classes in the future as well. It's reasonable to expect Diablo 4 to bring in some new classes down the road, and Jackson says that's why it was important for the game's current roster not to have too much overlap with those potential additions.
We don't purposely try to hit everything one-to-one though.
One, because then it's hard to make new things if all you're doing is referencing old things, but also, if we make something too 1:1, then that means we can't bring that class in, in the future if we wanted to for Diablo 4.
If we wanted to bring in the Demon Hunter, for example, we have to make the Rogue a decent amount different from the Demon Hunter because otherwise there'd be no point to doing it. We don't want to exclude the possibilities of what we do in the future by referencing things too much in classes that aren't in Diablo 4.
Diablo 4's Barbarian might fit into the "heavy warrior" archetype, but it is clearly distinct from the Paladin and Crusader from Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 respectively. Adding one of those classes would round out the roster without interfering with the Barbarian, and the same goes for past classes like the Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter, and Monk. Although it's hard to imagine Blizzard reintroducing every previous class, fans can cross their fingers in the hopes that they'll eventually be able to mow down Lilith's demonic hordes using their own favorite kit.
Diablo 4 releases for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on June 6.
