It’s been a little over three years since Blizzard released its free-to-play mobile game Diablo Immortal. Since its 2022 release, it’s received both continuous support and expansions, keeping players engaged and investing countless hours into Immortal. As Diablo Immortal heads into its third year, Blizzard is looking to expand upon it once again with the introduction of the Druid, a new playable class for Immortal. Ahead of the Druids’ launch, Shacknews was invited to go hands-on with the class, sit down, and chat with the development team about why they thought now was a good time to introduce such an iconic class and how this version differs from others.
The Diablo Immortal story is constantly growing and evolving. That being said, the latest chapter is set to take players to the Sharval Wilds, a place that is known for its natural life in the world of Diablo. Ryan Quinn, senior narrative designer, explains why now was the best time to introduce the beloved class to Diablo Immortal.
“I honestly don’t think there was a better time for us to put Druids in the game. When we develop classes at Blizzard, we often think about the perfect time. Narratively, [we knew we wanted it to make sense], and I feel like we’re doing that with the Druid NPC presence and their homeland.”
One of the main challenges the Diablo Immortal team found itself facing was how to make the class feel unique in its own way. The team got around this by making the class more mobile. In other installments like Diablo 4, the Druid class can often feel a bit slow and sluggish, but in Immortal, that’s no longer the case. Instead, it plays a lot quicker, and players have a lot more freedom to move around, especially when it comes to spellcasting. This was by design, as the team behind Immortal recognized that a significant portion of its player base may have already played Diablo games. They didn’t want the class to feel limited by past interactions; instead, they aimed to make it easy and intuitive to understand. On top of that, the Druid also opens up more possibilities when it comes to how people play the game.
“We are lacking when it comes to people who want to play as Summoners.” Senior system designer Nan Jiang tells Shacknews. “A lot of people love to play as summoners, and the only class we had until now was the Necromancer. We also never had a transformation class before, either. We heard what players were asking and saw this as an opportunity to solve those issues.”
As I was playing this class, it was surprising to see how versatile it was because it can be played in various ways. At one point during my demo, I had a small army of wolves and bears fighting alongside me, which by all accounts is how a summoner class plays. But on the flip side, I was also spellcasting from afar, and getting up close with my melee weapon and transforming into various beasts to give me the upper hand.
Regarding transformations, players will have the option to transform into a Werewolf and a Werebear. Both forms offer something a bit different as well. In short, the Werewolf is all about inflicting a lot of damage in a short amount of time, and the Werebear is about sustaining damage and taking more of a tank position.
Having the Druid transform into a Werewolf or Werebear wasn’t always the case. In the Druid’s early stages of development, the team experimented with other Wereforms, too. Some of these forms included giant beavers, sloths, and even porcupines. However, the team ultimately voted against this because they felt like they had “lost the class,” explained Jiang.
Jiang went on to mention that when the team was working on the Druid class, they spoke a lot with developers who worked on Diablo 2 and 4. A lot of the feedback the Immortal team got was to make the class quicker than it usually is. But it’s not just in gameplay that the team was looking to stand out, either.
“Our Druids are the Sharval Druids.” Lead artist Emil Salim told Shacknews. “That guided the art team, in the sense of what does that look like, what kind of forest do they live in, and if people have lived there for many years, what does that culture look like?”
The Druid culture is something that can be seen in various aspects of the character, too. During a presentation, Diablo Immortal went into extreme detail on how the smallest things matter to Druid society. This can be seen in the way that the tattoos are presented, the clothes they wear, and how they carry themselves. These were just a handful of ways the team wanted the Sharval Druids to stand out from the Druids you can play as in other titles.
“Blizzard has this design philosophy called ‘Concentrated Coolness,'” said Quinn. “It’s [when we find] a smaller number of details to focus on. If you look at classic Druid archetypes, they are often the masters of the four elements of nature. But having come off the heels of Tempest, we looked at that and went, ‘Well, we don’t want them to just retread the Tempest ability.'”
That eventually led the team to focus on this raw primal ability that’s seen in Diablo Immortal with the Sharval Druids. So natural disasters like wildfires and earthquakes seemed like a natural fit for the vibe the team was going for. Concentrated Coolness played a vital part in helping the team create one of the core features for the druids, that being an unstoppable force of nature that can “scare the crap out of people.”
It’s clear the team put in a lot of time to ensure that the Druid in Diablo Immortal feels familiar yet new. Many familiar aspects can be observed in various classes, in their transformation, and in how their powers are deeply intertwined with the world. But at the same time, it also stands on its own, as seen with the class’s speed and overall culture of the Sharval Druid. If you’ve never given Diablo Immortal a chance, the latest update serves as a perfect jumping point for players, no matter how familiar they are with the class.
Diablo Immortal is a free-to-play game. You can download it on the Apple App Store, Google Play, and PC.