Diablo IV has officially been revealed, including which classes will be available, but it turns out that Blizzard almost opted out of the playable Druid class.
While Diablo IV itself wasn’t the biggest surprise thanks to numerous leaks and yesteryear’s “it’s not quite ready to reveal” from the team over at Blizzard, the resurrection of Lilith definitely put some “ooh” and “aah” back into the reveal. During one of the several panels the developing team took part in during BlizzCon 2019 it was revealed that though the Druid inclusion was a huge hit, it almost wasn’t a thing at all.
“The Druid was not part of our original lineup for Diablo 4,” game director Luis Barriga mentioned. “That lasted about a day until basically one of our artists did this amazing piece of art.” He added that though they were initially against the idea, that quickly shifted from zero to one hundred in favor of the druid class making a big feature.
In the same panel it was also revealed some of the magicka-based changes made to the druid class. Instead of keeping to a fire specialty, the class itself moved over into more nature spells, “One of the things we said was ‘Hey, we love the idea of the Druid, how do we move it forward?’” he said. “One of the things that we did is we took some of that fire magic that didn’t feel like it met the fantasy of being someone who was in tune with nature and we replaced it with storm magic and earth magic. We feel pretty great about that.”
Missed out on the big reveal? Check out our previous Diablo IV coverage right here for all the latest trailers, including some gameplay!
Are you excited for Diablo IV and all of its druid glory, or is the recent Hong Kong controversy too much to overlook when looking at the future ahead with Blizzard? Sound off with your thoughts and what you’re most excited for over on Twitter @PrimaGames!
Published: Nov 4, 2019 03:51 pm