The Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred expansion is slated for release this October, bringing with it a myriad of exciting new features, areas, and improvements to the title. The addition reintroduces the jungle-like realm of Nahantu, which was first seen in Diablo 2, as well as the class Spiritborn. Meant for the late-game, players will need to complete the original Diablo storyline at least once before moving on to the expansion that continues the story of Mephisto.

Though there is much left to learn about the new class, the Spiritborn has been described by Diablo developers as an anti-necromancer, with a special focus on martial arts. The expansion will also introduce four Mercenaries for players to discover, which can help them through Sanctuary after their specific prerequisite missions are complete and will come with their own skill trees. There are also multiple new dungeons coming to the title, including a new end-game one that’s a special co-op challenge called the Dark Citadel.

Screen Rant interviewed Diablo General Manager Rod Fergusson and Executive Producer Gavian Whishaw at Gamescom to discuss the new Spiritborn class, how Mercenaries can complement different playstyles, and the other most impactful changes players can expect from Vessel of Hatred and season six.

Diablo 4’s Biggest Additions

Mercenaries, Spiritborn, Party Finder, & More

Screen Rant: I would love to talk about the Mercenaries that are coming into the game, more specifically how each one of them kind of works with different player play styles and how it fits in that regard.

Gavian Whishaw: Mercenaries are a brand new feature in Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred. When you first start Vessel of Hatred, you meet Raheir, who is a big Shieldbearer Mercenary, and he introduces you to a hideout, there you do a sub-quest, then you get the option to go on three more quests to unlock three other Mercenaries.

Depending on your play style and what you need in the world, each Mercenary has a skill tree that you can unlock and invest in, over time. Subo is archer, the Cursed Child is a magic , Varyana is a barbarian, and Raheir is a big tank.

Rod Fergusson: Yeah, and the ways that you move through the skill tree is through something we call rapport. By partnering - you can have them as a companion or have them as a reinforcement - but as a companion, what you can do is that as you're playing with them, you'll earn rapport, and that rapport will allow you to go through your skill tree.

A couple of examples like Gavian was talking about, to your question, was if you're a sorcerer, and you are more of a glass cannon - like you do a lot of damage, but you don't have a lot of defense or life - then what you can do is you could hire Raheir, and if you take a lot of damage, he can come in and protect you with his shield.

If you have a slight weakness in your build, you can use the Mercenary to shore it up, or if you are a fire sorcerer, then you can say, "Oh, I want the Cursed Child, Aldkin, I'm going to go down the skill tree onto the fire side, not the shadow side, and now we're both using fire magic and that can synergize together.”

Or if you were a barbarian, and you want somebody with range, you can use Subo, you can bring down hails of arrows on your enemies while you're fighting. There's different ways, and that's what we think will be really interesting to see, is how players take the Mercenaries and make complements or builds, whether it's through the companion feature or through the reinforcement feature.

Can you guys talk a little bit more about the new Tributes feature and how that can be used to impact future runs?

Rod Fergusson: Yeah, it's basically kind of the key to the dungeon in a way. When you go to the dungeon, you can put in a Tribute, and that allows you to determine what types of challenge you want or difficulty that you want to overcome, which also then will allow you to impact what kind of rewards you have. That's part of our new time attack dungeon in the Kurast Undercity.

When you go into there, you're trying to get to the boss before the clock runs out. By killing essentially the equivalent of an elite, you'll add more time to the clock. But there's also a part of being attuned, which is the way that you can actually increase reward multiplier, so the more monsters you kill, the higher the multiplier will go. If you're able to keep time on the clock, and you're able to take the multiplier really high when you actually can take the boss, then you'll get a bunch of rewards.

I know in the new Dark Citadel there's three different wings, how does each one of those challenge players in different ways? Or is it sort of similar throughout in of in that regard?

Gavian Whishaw: No, each wing has its own particular flavor of challenge. Each wing asks the players to do a little bit of strategy. The interesting thing is, it's not the same thing every time. Each wing has a different flavor and a different combination of attacks you need to overcome, obstacles, then within that, it's not the same thing over and over. We've played it several times, and we failed three or four different times, and tried several different strategies to get through the final wings.

Rod Fergusson: Yeah. Each wing has its own set of traps - not traps, but mechanics, because that's one of the big things we really wanted to make sure we didn't do in the Dark Citadel that we learned from season three, the Season of the Construct: when we added traps to dungeons, it kind of slowed players down and took them out of combat.

When we were looking at the mechanics of the Dark Citadel and how players can work together, we wanted to reinforce and make the combat more exciting, not make it like, "Okay, I have to wait here for the fire to go by," or whatever. Then, once you have completed the three wings, that sort of gives you the ability to go after the main boss, which is - I think - one of our cooler looking bosses.

Gavian Whishaw: Yeah, it's super cool.

Rod Fergusson: Yeah, because one of the great things about the Dark Citadel is that the team has taken it and used it as an opportunity to reinforce the lore of the world. It's the crater that exists and is from the Major Wars in of our history, and these are from the first Goatmen that ever existed. These are the ancient ones and the magic that they've tried to practice, and so you get to go and fight this monster family that is sort of thrown back to what the original Goatmen were before they became what we know they are today.

What players are going to really feel when they go in on October 8th, whether they have the expansion or not, is they're going to feel our whole new progression system. - Rod Fergusson

You mentioned learning from past season in developing this. In general, what would you say have been the biggest lessons that you've taken from previous that you've really brought into Vessel of Hatred the most?

Gavian Whishaw: I think from a meta perspective, when we first launched the game, I think we had an idealized understanding on paper of how we wanted it to work, but then when it got into the hands of players, we saw that they had maybe different opinions and wanted different things out of the game.

Over time, I think you've seen us evolve how we both listen to players, and how we release content, and how fast we can make changes. If you look at the leveling progression, if you look at the time to get to end game, if you look at the open world activities in Helltide and how fun those have become, we've taken all those learnings and we put it into Vessel of Hatred.

Rod Fergusson: Yeah, I think Helltide is a great example, if you look at what it was when we launched the game to where it is today in season five. Where Helltide is now both in Eternal and Seasonal, where Helltide is now in all difficulty levels, where it's much more intense, that you can summon a boss inside of Helltide, there's the giant worms spewing up monsters, and you have this sort of clock based on how well you're doing, they eventually try to catch up to you and track you down. A lot of that was learnings we saw from season two.

But I think when we launched the game, the initial idea was to slow down combat a little bit more and to be a little bit more strategic in how you play about what monster you need to attack first and how to navigate the battlefield. What we've really learned over the seasons is that people want the power fantasy of them just plowing through.

You can see that in Helltide, and you can see that in the game. I think what's going to be interesting, too, is that at the same time that we come up with the expansion, we're coming out with season six. What we did to loot in season four with our Loot Reborn, we're doing that for progression in season six. What players are going to really feel when they go in on October 8th, whether they have the expansion or not, is they're going to feel our whole new progression system - how we deal with Paragon, how we deal with difficulty levels, how we deal with leveling.

Another really exciting thing that's coming to the game is the party finder system. Can you talk a little bit more about the sort of specifications and stuff that players will be able to use to tailor their party experience?

Rod Fergusson: You can tailor it quite far. You can actually say that, "I'm going to the Citadel and I'm looking for someone to go after a particular wing," and not just a Dark Citadel, or, "Hey, I'm not very competitive," or, "I want to be carried," or, "I can carry.”

Gavian Whishaw: It's okay to just say it. [Laughs]

Rod Fergusson: Yeah. [Laughs] But the thing that's exciting is that the way that it's integrated: it's in the social menu, but it's also on your remote wheel. My favorite part is that it's actually integrated in the map, so say you go to a Nightmare Dungeon and you go to fire it up, you can actually just list it in the party finder. With one button press, there's now a Nightmare Dungeon party and people can in and go into the dungeon with you. Again, that's something that's really going to help the Dark Citadel, because that's our co-op dungeon, but it's not part of the expansion, so every player's going to have access to party finder.

Gavian Whishaw: We do a lot of playtesting internally, and it's been a super handy feature to have.

In of this entirely new area that players are going to be able to explore, the jungle Nahantu, can you talk a little bit about what the creative design process was like behind that and how you landed on jungle in the first place?

Gavian Whishaw: Yeah, I think it's something that our art director wanted to do. The world of Diablo 4 is very beautiful. It can be stark at times. John Mueller wanted a change - he's our art director - and the physical geography, the location of where it is in the world map is where we had an idea that we wanted to go. Then this idea started to come up: the jungle is quite different. It's foreboding. We can have a lot of interesting new monsters and new ambient creatures, new foliage and new lighting styles.

Rod Fergusson: It was really the combination of both a contrast to the existing game - when you think about Diablo 4, you think about gothic and medieval, and we were like, "Well, where else could we go for broad contrast for that?" The idea of a very old and ancient jungle that's being corrupted by evil was really an interesting twist on that, where we could have sunlight coming in on the canopy, and we actually have these red plains that are part of that as well.

It allowed us to create new monsters like the Hollows and the Dregs that you'll see, that are entirely new monster families there. But it also allows us to revisit some of our past, because the southern tip of the eastern continent you got to play in Diablo 2, so you get to revisit the city of Kurast where Mephisto's soul stone was being kept.

Narratively, the idea that Neyrelle is taking Mephisto back in a soul stone to a place where you sort of started was a full circle for the story, and it also allowed us to revisit monster families. We're bringing back the Lacuni, which is a fan favorite as well. It was kind of a little bit of everything.

The Evolution Of Vessel Of Hatred

The Hardest Parts Of An Expansion & Key Tiny Details

Obviously, there are the really big additions that have been sort of the main PR-touted features of the expansion, but I'm curious if there are any smaller details that are coming with it, where maybe they're not as highly d, but you're like, "This is a small one that when players see it, they're going to really be excited about it”?

Rod Fergusson: It's a mixture, because I think one of the things we always end up doing is we always end up talking about the cool thing we're giving to the whole game as part of season six and go like, "Oh, nope, that's not in the expansion. Everybody's getting that." Because Gavian's favorite feature is being able to make a particular town your favorite, or a bigger waypoint your favorite.

Gavian Whishaw: It's a game changer. It's amazing.

Rod Fergusson: Because right now when you push the mini town portal, you always go back to the nearest capital city. But now you can actually, as part of season six, you'll be able to say, "I always want to go back here," so you don't have to have that notion of moving around, which is really cool.

But we've been sort of sequencing things out - announcing the general area at Blizzcon, and then the Neyrelle story at the showcase in June, and then the Spiritborn in July, and now we're talking about Mercenaries and the two new dungeons, and we still have more to go, and we're excited about the August 29th stream to go deeper into it. Because we're kind of getting from really big swathes to smaller stuff now, as we're getting closer. I know for a fact there's a really cool feature we have not talked about, that people will love, so I look forward to this stream next week so we can talk about it.

Gavian Whishaw: A little thing for me, is the Mercenaries know each other, and they have little flavor text conversations, and they remark on the world as they're moving through it. It's very subtle, but I really like the characterization, and I like that they have a previous relationship outside the player character.

Do you guys have a Mercenary that you prefer for any particular reason, just to play with, or you really like their design or their personality?

Gavian Whishaw: Varya is an ex-cannibal who left her cannibal tribe because they were doing worse things than being cannibals. [Laughs] I think that's really impressive.

Rod Fergusson: Yeah, I think Aldkin, the Cursed Child, is just so unique as sort of this idea of the half human, half demon child and the power that they're able to control. I'm really looking forward to being able to tap into that. But we always talk about Raheir. He's a dad, and he's the first one that you meet, and actually the way that you meet him is through the campaign. The way you unlock Mercenaries is actually playing the story, so getting to meet Raheir and learn about the Pale Hand, and - I mean, and Subo is a drunken archer, so who couldn't relate to somebody like that? [Laughs]

Gavian Whishaw: Yeah, not at all. [Laughs] Something that I don't think we've talked about is that Varya has a kill counter.

Rod Fergusson: Oh, yeah, so not only do they have the abilities you can do as a companion or a reinforcement, but they each have perks as well, and Varyana's is really cool. kill streaks back in Diablo 3? Varyana kind of brings that into your play. When you have Varyana as a companion, they'll start tracking your kill streak and help you keep it going, and while it's going, you'll actually increase your movement speed and your attack speed. You can really amp up how quickly you're attacking if you can keep the kill streak going.

I'm curious what the scale for that is. If you keep it up indefinitely, are you just going be zooming after a certain point?

Gavian Whishaw: That's exactly what happened. [Laughs] The first time I played it, I was like, "10, 20, 100, how high can I get? What is this?" I started planting my routes around it. It's a surprisingly compelling mechanic.

In of the biggest challenges that came with this expansion, do you find that it's hardest to do a completely new class or a new area? Or is it something that players wouldn't expect entirely that winds up being the biggest challenge?

Gavian Whishaw: I think just operationally, the class is the biggest challenge. They take the longest to make. They're the most complicated, certainly. They involve the most people and require the most planning and forethought. Just from a purely mechanical standpoint, making a new class is the hardest.

Rod Fergusson: Because it's balance and interaction, because you're not only creating a class, but with skills, but you also have a bunch of Legendary affixes that have to go with it that, work with those skills and are unique that go with those skills.

Then there's just the class design itself. We already heard pretty quickly when we announced the Spiritborn, there were a lot of people, "Well, what about the Paladin? We wanted the Paladin." It's a rare opportunity you get to add to the franchise in this way, to provide a whole new class. Having the ability to add something completely new and fresh to the franchise was really exciting for the team.

As we look to the future, we go like, "Oh, there'll be opportunities to do more classic stuff later." But I think that adding a class - anytime you add a class too, and we've added two to Immortal as well, and you can feel like you know how complicated that is.

But what you were talking about, operationally, I think as a team, to build something of this scale, we have to build it in parallel. When we shipped Diablo 4 back in June last year, we were already working on this while working on season one, while working on season two, and launching the main game, and so what it's taken for our team to get to a place where we're mature enough to have what I call swim lanes of work, where we're developing so much in parallel, that's really been the challenge for us.

In of the Spiritborn, did you always have a pretty clear picture of what you wanted them to be from the outset, or did that take a lot of iteration to land on this class?

Rod Fergusson: Yeah, I think we have some behind the scenes video coming up, that shows a little bit about the concepting process. But it was this notion about finding a way to - we really wanted the class to come from the region we were going. We wanted it to feel like a very cohesive package, so having something from the jungle made a lot of sense. Then you start looking at what power fantasy - what types of mechanics are you not fulfilling with what you have?

This is an area where we're like, "Oh, finding this sort of part martial artist, part summoner with elemental attacks." If you look at the Venn diagram, it was a cool area to hone into this. That was what the exploration about: how do we tap into that?

Then it came from the spirit realm as part of our story, and then the idea of spirit guardians. Then it was sort of like, "How do we look at the jungle?" and going, "Okay, from the sky and from the canopy, from the ground." It was really a very iterative process to find that. Then leaning into it, the idea that the jaguar is going to be fire, the eagle is going to be lightning, the centipede, poison. It was a very iterative layer.

Gavian Whishaw: Very iterative, and then a lot of polish. When you play the class, each of the spirits really feel fully featured, and they feel grounded, and they have a place in the world, and they feel good in the jungle. That took a lot of work and a lot of polish.

Rod Fergusson: And you can mix and match.

Gavian Whishaw: That's right.

Rod Fergusson: There's a feature inside the Spiritborn, which is the Spirit Hall, and you can decide what spirit you want to truly focus on. By doing that, it changes your build to be more attuned to that particular garden. You can choose to go jaguar-jaguar, and now you're very much leaning into that power fantasy, or you can mix and match and say, "Oh, I want to do jaguar with centipede." Now you get the speed of the jaguar, but the poison capability of the centipede, and that's where the fun comes in. It's so versatile.

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred will release October 8.