Diablo Immortalis gearing up to unleash its next new class, and it’s a franchise staple that the mobile game aims to make its own.Diablo Immortal’s Druid hails from the isolated Druid folk from the Sharval Wilds; these Druids are more “wild” and “feral” than their counterparts seen throughout the franchise, and this is exemplified in gameplay. Able to transform between savage werebear and werewolf forms,Diablo Immortal’s druids are perhaps the most versatile class in the game. They can take on strong supporting roles that provide myriad buffs and heals, focus on summoning animals as a Necromancer-style pet class, or go all out on melee combat like a fur-clad Barbarian.
Game Rant sat down withDablo Immortalsenior narrative designerRyan Quinn and lead artist Emil Salim to discuss the game’s unique spin on the Druid, including its lore background, playstyles, and art direction. They weighed in on the iterative process that led to the Druid’s final form, what kinds of players may enjoy the Druid most, and how the Druids of the Sharval Wilds are poised to react to the ongoing Epoch of Madness inDiablo Immortal.This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How Diablo Immortal’s Druid Takes Its Own Shape in the Franchise
Q: Compared to prior versions of the druid in the Diablo franchise, what kinds of themes or mythologies did you want to explore with Diablo Immortal’s druid?
Quinn:Oh man, so many. So the Druid inImmortalcomes from the Sharval Wilds, which is a little bit more of a kind of dark, spooky, dense-canopied high forest with some very classically Gothic and Gaelic fantasy elements—like the presence of the Fae, these twisted spirits of nature. And a lot of witches who have been in conflict with the Druids for quite some time, narratively speaking.
Our Druid, in comparison to the kind of classic Diablo Druids ofDiablo IIfrom Scosglen, did not go to the Druidic colleges. They did a lot of their learning kind of on their own—living in nature, maybe with one mentor or one fellow Druid in the environment to teach them. They’re a little bit more small-scale. They’re not as organized, and the way that they channel their magic is very different.
Rather than shaping harmony and balance strictly with nature, they basically surrender themselves—body and soul—to the raw and untamed power of the wilderness. And so it causes their magic to kind of flow out in some unpredictable and chaotic ways. You know, earthquakes spreading, fissures, wildfires burning longer and farther than you might expect. And their transformations are different and sporadic as well—both more powerful, but also, in some regards, more intense and shorter-term.
Salim:In terms of gameplay, our Druid also has the added component of the Primal Power system. Ryan, I don’t know if you can talk a little bit more about that—because I’m not a designer—but it sure is fun.
Quinn:To represent that kind of chaos, the Druid has a unique resource called Primal Power. This is basically the ability—the track—that you have to spend in order to remain transformed in your werewolf or werebear form, and also to use some of these very radical outpouring powers of nature.
For example, we have an ability calledSurging Stonethat makes these huge rock jetties jut up from under the ground at random and knock enemies airborne. That will also use your Primal Power.
Then we have a number of Legendaries that cause you to treat Primal Power as a resource—something that will give you a spike of extreme offense or control as the Druid, or in a few rare cases, channeled healing. But it’s on a timer, and that’s a very clear timer, and something that you, as a Druid player, have to manage if you want to dip into that. Of course, you’re not required to, but it can give you a real boost offensively.
Salim:All of that combined, in terms of playstyle, makes the Druid as a class extremely customizable. So, looking at it from a player’s perspective, you can play any way you want.You can play like a Necromancer, you can play like a Wizard, you can play like a Crusader, you can play like a Barb. All of those playstyles can be included in just the Druid alone.
So, in my opinion, I think out of all the other classes we have so far, the Druid is the one that’s most customizable.
Q: Can you focus on one particular animal form as the druid, or are you more meant to play with all of them?
Salim:I’m not a systems designer, but I would maybe advise players to actually mix it up. I think part of the appeal of playing as a Druid is the fact that you can transform into all of these—multiple different animals—and each of them has to do with a slightly different ability.
Quinn:In terms of focusing your playstyle, right now the werewolf and werebear—those are our primary longer-term transformations—and they both come with big boosts to offense. But the werewolf is more agile, more about hunting down and executing individual enemies—single-target or highest single-target damage.
Whereas the werebear is a little bit more about bowling enemies over, doing big AOE smashes.There are Legendariesthat support those individual forms. If you’re like, “Oh, I just really love smashing the ground as a werebear,” or, “I want my charge to be a little bit different—go longer or go farther across the area,” you’re able to fine-tune your build to focus on a specific form.
But to Emi’s point, we also have a lot of kind of mix-and-match capabilities with those. You can only be in one transformed form at a time, but when you fall out of that transformation, we have a number of short-term transformation skills that you can use while you’re recovering.
The big ones areRaven Swarm, where your body basically turns into this kind of fountain of dozens of ravens and does a dash attack—it’s a really cool one. Like, it’s one of my favorite-looking effects.
And then we’ve gotStag Charge, where you transform into a stag and lunge across the battlefield three times. You get that initial dash boost to break out of constraints, and then multiple AOE hits every time you land on the ground as you’re leaping across the battlefield.
And those skills behave a little bit differently—they’re part dash, part charge, part mobility skills—as opposed to your longer-term transformations. But I fully expect, whether it’s in PvP or PvE, that people are going to dip in and out of those various forms. Even if you’re a really werebear-focused or werewolf-focused Druid, you might have occasion to use some of the other stuff as well.
That fluidity of going back and forth between playstyles was really, really important to the designers working on classes. We didn’t want you to feel like you had to focus—we wanted you to feel like you could focus.
Salim:You mentioned mobility. One very deliberate decision we made for our Druid inDiablo Immortalwas that we really want the class to feelveryagile—to move very quickly. That’s why some abilities, likeRaven Swarm, let you zip from place to place, and it’s the same withStag Charge.
In addition to the animal transformations, you can also summon different creatures to help you out: wolves, an actual bear, and even something called theOak Sage. The Oak Sage has been part of the Druid kitsinceDiablo 2, but because our Druid hails from the Sharval Wilds and is so closely connected to nature, we’ve re-imagined its design. Now it looks almost like a flower made of leaves—nature itself.
The general conceit is that our Oak Sage is a “light Fae,” different from the dark Fae you battle in the Sharval Wilds zone. While the dark Fae are concerned with spreading chaos in nature, the light-aligned Fae aim to maintain balance, and that’s why they help you.
Q: That fluidity of playstyles is a nice change of pace. If you want to just stick to one thing, there are plenty of other classes that do that.
Salim:I think because the playstyle is so customizable too, I personally feel like this is possibly the best class for any players who maybe haven’t played our game for a while and are thinking about coming back—but want a really fast-moving class to help them get through all the major highlights of the game.
I think this would be a perfect one for that.
Q: What’s it like collaborating with the designers on this? How do you decide together whether or not the druid even can turn into a swarm of ravens?
Salim:We did experiment with multiple different animals—weexperimented with a porcupineand a seal, I think. But the lesson we learned from all that experience was that, you know, some animals work, and some animals… it just doesn’t really feel identifiable as a Druid.
In terms of how we work together, I’d say story, art, and design always work very, very closely. A lot of our ideas are built on top of each other’s. So yeah, it’s always a very close collaboration.
Quinn:See, onephilosophy we’ve got at Blizzardis that we try not to be too precious about individual people’s ideas. We tend to believe the best ideas can come from anywhere.
Some of these concepts might start with, for example, Narrative saying, “Hey, we need a fire skill that goes crazy. We need something that’s going to burn out of control so we can really emphasize the destructive power the Druid has.” Other ideas might come from a systems designer going, “Hey, I think this class is a little light on mobility—we need some way for them to get across the battlefield and break out of soft control loss. What do we have for that thematically?”
Then Emil and I, and our respective teams, will kind of go off into our corners. But it’s very much like a beautiful ping-pong match. It starts with a different member of the team almost every time when we’re trying to fill in each of these specific gaps with a skill.
I think when we sit down to ask, “What class do we want to do? What’s the fantasy? What do we want players to feel?”—that part is a bit more consistent. Everybody puts their heads together, we all throw in our best ideas, and we come out with something that feels very cohesive.
But as we build the class piece by piece, it really is: who’s got the best idea? Who sees the most obvious need? Shout it out.
Salim:One example I can think of goes back to really early on in the process. Narrative—Ryan’s team—told us, “Okay, our Druid is from the Sharval Wilds, right? They’ve been living out in seclusion on their own for a very, very long time, and now they’re finally coming back out.”
So for the art team, we started thinking, “Okay, how does that feel for people?” And we thought it was probably a little bit like when we were all stepping out of the COVID lockdowns and didn’t really know how to interact with people again.
That’s why, really early on, we wanted to give our Druid inDiablo Immortalthis very unique, eccentric personality—where they don’t really know how to interact with people. They have this peculiar sense of humor that maybe not everyone fully understands.
And visually, this is also why they wear their clothing a little differently from all of the other classes. We really liked the idea that, after living in seclusion for so long, the Druid doesn’t really know how to clothe themselves properly.
That’s one of the earliest ideas we had—the Druid has this asymmetrical design to them. They wear their skirt a little off-center.
They wear their armor skewed to one side. They only wear one spaulder, but not on the other shoulder. So a lot of these things were very deliberate, to make our Druid feel a little bit askew.
It also plays into the sense of duality in the Druid—the fact that they are half-human, half-animal. And that’s reflected visually, too: when you look at their design, one side of their silhouette is human… the other side is a bear.
Q: What inspired the idea behind the Sharval Wilds Druid? These isolated folk who, as you mentioned, are kind of coming out of a COVID lockdown.
Quinn:I think, selfishly, we have this pillar on theImmortalteam: 50% new, 50% familiar. You know, the game is set inbetween Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. We sort of see ourselves as this historical Silver Age of Sanctuary. “The sequel toLord of Destruction” is the phrase we like to bat around the writer’s room.
So we wanted to do something thatfeltlike theLoDDruid—something that really felt classic. But we didn’t just want to do only that. It feels like… not a good use of any player’s time if I just give you something cool that you’ve already had—that you’ve already played and enjoyed.
What we spent a lot of time talking about was: What do we absolutely need to include so it stillfeelslike an iconic Druid? So that when you see this character in the wild, you look at them and go, “Yeah, that’s a Druid—but wait, what’s that weird talon on their arm?” or “What’s that floaty plant thing over their head?”
So, we focused on identifying the core: werewolf, werebear—and then asked, what could we do that’s new? Things like using life magic:Circle of Life,Living Thorns, and leaning more into brambles and dangerous plants. That gave us more room to explore that side of the fantasy.
Then we really narrowed the Druid’s elemental focus down to fire and earth, which helped give us a very cohesive fantasy—something that feels a little bit different. But no one’s going to play this and go, “Oh, that doesn’t feel like a Druid.” You know what I mean?
That was really key—trying to land right on that 50/50 line.
Salim:I think the fact that we started with a class that already exists withinDiablogave us a strong foundation. On the art side, we did a lot of intensive research into what Druids have looked like inDiabloin the past. And having that existing class already established allowed us, as a team, to really push the boundaries of what a Druid could be—to try a lot of new things.
Because we always knew that no matter how far we pushed it, we’d have those elements that anchor it back and keep it clearly identifiable as a Druid.
So yeah, it was both a very freeing experience—and also a lot of fun—to work on something new that’s not entirely new.
Q: You’ve touched on this a bit, but what did you find especially important to get right about the Druid? Something you had to nail or it wouldn’t be your Druid?
Salim: I think the fact that we started with aclass that already exists withinDiablo—on the art side, we did intensive research on what Druids inDiablohave traditionally looked like. And having that existing class to build from allowed us, as a team, to really push the boundaries of the Druid and try a lot of new things.
Because we always knew that no matter how far we pushed it, we’d have all these elements that anchor it back—things that keep it clearly identifiable as a Druid.
So yeah, it was both a very freeing experience, and also just a lot of fun to work on something new… that’s not reallyentirelynew.
Quinn:I think mechanically, from our perspective, getting the fluidity right for the Druid—both in animation and in skill usage—was really, really important to making this class feel like it fits that classic hybrid playstyle people expect from a Druid.
You know, nobody picks up a Druid and goes, “Okay, give me a bunch of 20-second cooldowns and a lengthy period where I can’t do anything.” You want to be able to chainwolfintobear, intosummon, into using another ability—and you want that to feel like it happens very, very seamlessly.
And I think if we hadn’t landed that, it wouldn’t feel likeDiablo Immortal’sDruid, number one—and number two, I don’t know that it would feel like it was delivering on that “jack of all trades” fantasy that’s so core to why people love playing this kind of class. You know, the transforming, shapeshifting, summoning archetype.
Narratively, Emil touched on this really well—but from the get-go, we used the term “oddball hermit” to describe the vocal performance we wanted for the character. But thatcan’tbe everything, right? Because aDiablo Immortalhero is out there saving people, fighting demons, rallying armies, and stuff like that.
So we got the actors—Jack Ayres and Jess Nesling—and they were able to inject both that “I don’t understand your language, I’m not from around here, I don’t know which fork to use” quality… while still absolutely sounding like a badass, staff-swingingDiablo Immortalhero.
That’s not an easy balance for an actor to strike—to infuse those parts with that level of humanity, but also hold backjustenough so that the Druid might say something funny… but they don’t realize it’s funny. Because they’re not really thinking about other people’s feelings all that much.
I love that aspect of the performance. And I think once we nailed that, we had the character.
How Diablo Immortal Learned from Previous Classes
Q: I’ve spoken to you guys about every new classDiablo Immortalhas introduced. How has your process changed since the first time? Have you learned any important lessons?
Quinn:The most obvious example is, you know,the Blood Knightand the Tempest were very new toDiablo—very high-concept, high-fantasy kinds of ideas. And so, when you hear me talk about the “familiar/new yo-yo,” that applies to everything we do on this team.
It includes knowingwhenit’s the right time to deliver something that feels a little more familiar—something that feels like a very core, very classicDiabloexperience. We’ve done some very unusual zone environments in this game, likeAncient’s Cradle, and then we’ve also done very classic environments, likeTristram Cathedral.
One of the things we’re looking at now, as we design anything new—not just classes—is that balance: Is it the right time to go new and surprise people? Or is it the right time to play to a franchise touchstone—something very familiar?
And I think that’s become, you know, three years into the game’s life, something that’s really central to us: When is the right time to do this?
We knew we were going to be going to Sharval—to these dark woods, this area with a lot of contested territory. People in the urban and rural environments disagree about how to share the land with one another. Was there ever going to be a better time for us to drop a Druid?
That kind of thinking has really gotten into our heads too, as we try to balance new zone and quest releases with new class and content releases.
Salim:Yeah, I think we’ve been developing this game for three years now, and our process is definitely a lot more refined.
I think that because of that level of experience, it’s allowed us to challenge ourselves with a lot more new things. With the Druid, it may seem to playerslike it’s an existing class, but from theDiablo Immortaldevelopment team’s perspective, this is brand new.
We’re trying so many new things. For instance, on the art side, this isn’t just a human Druid we had to conceptualize—we also had to visualize the werebear, the werewolf, and ensure everything works together. Plus, all of the animal summons they can use as well.
So we are challenging ourselves with a lot of new things for the game. And at the same time, by now, we’ve gathered a lot more player data. A lot more players are telling us exactly what they want from the game, and we’re always listening.
So hopefully, we’re now able to deliver more accurately on what our players are looking for.
Q: Earlier, you mentioned the porcupine. Are there other things you tried where you decided, “Never mind, don’t do that!”
Salim:I remember we tried a bunch of different kinds of weapons as well. Because with our Druid, we didn’t want them to be overly melee-focused in terms of the weapons they use—but at the same time, wedidwant them to be holding something.
So we tried several different things. We tried a blade, a small knife. We tried, like, “Okay, maybe it’s just a skull,” or “Maybe it’s an animal they hold,” or “Something to do with nature—maybe a stick.”
But eventually, we landed on what Ihopeis the most appropriate weapon for the Druid: a staff.
Even in the discussion around the staff, we were asking questions like, “How do they get it? Do they summon it from nature? Or is it something they just hold?” So there was a lot of trial and error throughout that process.
Q: Did you land on a lore justification for the staff? How do druids get one?
Quinn:Narratively, I think it’s much like the classic sort of Druidic staff. You find the trustiest branch in your grove, you carve it yourself. Some of these staves—if you look at them—they have runes imprinted on them. And those runes, in many cases, take inspiration from Ogham, the Celtic language.
We wanted to make it feel very deeply ingrained—not just in the story of the Druids, but in the narrative we’re shaping around the Sharval Wilds, this very particular kind of “first forest” on Sanctuary.
Now, is that going to be the case for every single staff you find dropped on the ground in aDiabloloot pinata? Maybe not. Not all of them are that ornamented or narrativized. But definitely, that’s how we see the Druid’s staff: as a connection to their home grove, something they’ve carried around with them for a long time.
Salim:Just to reiterate that point—because the Druid is so close to nature, everything they use is made of natural materials, as much as possible. That’s why, compared to all the other classes inImmortal, the Druid is the least armored—if that’s a word. They don’t have as much metal on them. Most of it is fur, animal bones, leather, grass—very nature-based materials.
Same thing with the staff—it has to be wood. It has to feel grounded to the earth.
Another thing Ryan mentioned was the Ogham alphabet. We actually used the Ogham alphabet as inspiration for the Druid’s tattoo design as well. You’ll see it on one of their arms. The tattoo is meant to signify their community, and it has real meaning behind it.
If you start at the top, it shows their tribe’s insignia, enclosed by a solar calendar that marks their birth date. From there, a single line runs down their arm to represent their life journey. If you see a break in that central line, it means they’ve lost someone. Any line that branches out from it represents siblings. And then it continues all the way down to mark whether they’ve participated in the battle between Angels and Demons, their marital status, how many children they have—all of that information is contained within that arm tattoo.
Q: The Druid can be almost anything in gameplay terms. Did you find it this made it challenging to work on the character narratively and visually?
Salim:Yes, definitely. Because all of these different designs—from the human form to the werebear to the werewolf—have to work seamlessly together. So there was a lot of discussion, like: if we design the werebear, how humanoid should the werebear be? Or how bearish does it need to look?
It was all about finding that balance in between. And it took a lot of different tries.
There was also the question of cosmetics, right? So far, we’ve only hadclasses inDiablo Immortalthat exist in one form—the human form. So whenever we designed cosmetics, they were only for that.
But with the Druid, we also have all of these animal forms—and not just one, but multiple. So the question became: how much do we apply the cosmetic designs to the werebear? To the werewolf?
And that, too, took multiple tries to get right.
Quinn:Some of the character’s essential nature really shines through when they’re able to transform. And I think—Emil, we had a long discussion about whether or not the Druid’s tattoos should persist in werebear and werewolf forms.
You’ll see now, in the final release, that they do. When you’re in werewolf or werebear form, you have these glowing gold tattoos on your body—something another random were-creature roaming around inDiablowouldn’t have. That’s our way of saying, “Hey, the Druid is still here.”
The visual identity, the core personality, the core magic of the Druid—it’s not gone just because we change forms.
We talk a lot about identity persistence inDiablo, becauseDiablois a gear loop game. It’s about finding and playing with cool dress-up and cool ability dress-up. So we want to verify that some of the choices you make for your character—even early on, even hour one—you may still see those things.
You can still feel them, recognize them in your character, even when you’re 100 or 200 hours in.
Q: As a side note, are those tattoos customizable?
Salim:The tattoos will still remain customizable, just like with all of the other classes. But the main tattoo—the core one—is designed specifically for the Druid.
There was also some discussion when we thought about, “Okay, if the tattoo remains when they turn into a werebear or werewolf, and those forms are covered in fur, then how does that work?” Does that mean theirfurglows in the shape of the tattoo? Or is the tattoo on their skin, and the fur is cut shorter around it so you can still see it?
In the end, we decided it’s a little bit of both. The tattoo is on the skin, but the fur also glows. We didn’t shave or shorten the fur around it—the fur remains the same length—but both the skinandthe fur change color together to show the tattoo.
Q: We’ve got the Epoch of Madness underway now. How are the Druids positioned to react to this?
Quinn:Super great question. So, the Druids have had this big conflict with the local witches of Sharval since time immemorial.
Several centuries back, they arrived here from Scosglen, and the witches—who were already dwelling in Sharval—saw them as invaders. And the Druids saw the witches as practitioners of dangerous magic that would ruin the land.
Violence ensued, and the Druids got pushed back to the eastern thickets of Sharval. They were outnumbered by the local witches and kind of made their way into these dense bramble thickets—hiding out in big trapdoor spider caves.
But with the changes that are now happening in Sharval—and Joey, I don’t know if you’ve played through ourquestline from Quarter 1, 3.3:The Writhing Wilds—there’s a transformation coming. Not just to the land of Sharval, but also to its people. The Druids and witches are starting to realize that, even though they may not like each other very much, the entire land and civilization around them are changing.
And so I think, first and foremost, the Druid is going to be the class with themostat stake in this year’s storyline. There are a bunch of NPC Druids. There are a bunch of NPC witches. There are unique dialogue exchanges for the Druid player character with several of those characters.
But also, this year’s storyline is really about sharing Sharval. It’s about how these urban folks and rural folks—these Druids and these witches, the Shardborn who are coming from far afield, and the people who already live in Sharval, in the wilds, and in the surrounding cities—how do they possibly manage to live together in an environment of scarcity and, sometimes, depravity? Is that even possible?
And the class I think that has the most answers to that question is the one that’s been carving out a living from the land here for decades.
Q: Why are these Druids portrayed as so wild and feral? What happened to them?
Quinn:Some of it is playstyle, and some of it is personality. The Druid, themselves, is what we’d describe as a low-agreeableness character. They’re more motivated by instinct and what’s happening in their immediate environment than by societal approval or faith or groupthink.
Several of our other classes are motivated in more social or group-oriented ways—but not the Druid. And that personality comes through in a lot of their voice lines and dialogue.
But I think a big part of where that feralness you’re talking about comes from is also the magic. It’s the way they choose to invoke druidic power. Rather than seeking strict harmony or balance, they’re basically saying to mighty Mother Nature, “I’m the conduit. Use me.”
And what that does to them… you’ll see some of it in the Origin Quest—which is essentially our Class Trial quest line. It can make their shapeshifting unstable. It can make their elemental powers spiral out of control and destroy things they didn’t mean to.
But part of the conceit of being a Druid in Sharval is accepting that nature is random and chaotic—that you can’t have control over everything. And sometimes the only way to survive in a dangerous environment is to ride the wave.
That’s very core—not just tothe Druid’s playstyle, but to the dangerous forces they choose to invoke.
[END]
