Brent Gibson, Diablo IV game director, and Bjorn Mikkelsen, the senior game designer, sat down for a press roundtable at BlizzCon 2026. Since this was essentially an open question format press conference, the questions moved from one topic to another and it would be impossible to attribute every question. As such, I’ve consolidated the questions and answers, and summarized them by topic.
Hell’s Legacy and Seasons
How did the team decide on what content to add to Hell’s Legacy to celebrate the franchise’s thirtieth anniversary?
Yeah, first off, it's going back through all of the old games and having really deep, heart-to-heart discussions on what we found super fascinating as fans about the previous games. But ultimately, I love where we landed, where it was like a focus on bringing back the Dark Wanderers from the past, allowing us to have Deckard, thank God. It didn't feel right without his voice. I was like, could we get the voice actor? And it was like, oh yeah, he's totally in.
So, focusing around the core elements, I think was first and foremost what we needed to set the stage for a good story, but we knew we needed to end with all three Prime Evils.
How does it feel to finally have Diablo in Diablo 4?
We've been hearing that for a very, very long time. How do we do that just coming off of beating Mephisto? What do we do with Mephisto? I think the team has done a brilliant job at doing this living nightmare, this waking nightmare approach to getting all those things in. So, really, start with the core, your must-haves, like that, and then having fun with the rest of the flavor as we went along.
For Diablo, at the first moment we got the model in, just the model alone, you're like, yeah, okay. This feels really, really good. We're happy to do it. Because we're passionate about telling the story of Hatred. Very passionate. We're building up Lilith and her relationship with her father, and we knew we had to deliver on that. And we, you know, as we're making expansions, that was the focus. But we, too, were like, yeah, it'd be great to get Big Red back into this game. And so, the 30th anniversary, being able to allow us to do that, it feels really great.
What are some of the challenges of changing game mechanics between seasons?
It's a two-part question. So, what are we fond of, and what was the first one again? And what are some challenges of introducing challenges? Yes, okay. So first off, the game is chock full of stuff, right? So, complexity can become a problem. We have more activities than we know what to do with right now, for example. And so sometimes introducing something may require us to kind of make a little bit of room for that new thing to exist. So, I think that's the biggest challenge in making sure that we're not overwhelming our players. We get a lot of new players all the time, and we want to make sure that the game is still very approachable. At the same time, we want to make sure that we're following our fans on what is working and what is not working. The changes that we're doing with the Mythics are a really good example of, like, we're trying some stuff out, got a lot of feedback, we're kind of pulling back and adjusting the mechanics along the way. And so that's a lot of the challenge.
Now, some of the stuff I do like, like we knew we needed more control or more player agency over the end game. And so, introducing War Plans was pretty amazing because we've designed the system to flex season to season. Like what we're doing with Season of Hell's Legacy, we're letting the Soul Splinters have an impact not only on your player power, but it's going to feed into those War Plans as well. So, we've got a very flexible system now, which I love that allows us to really mess with the meta and the end game at the same time, season upon season.
What was the process of bringing back classic characters?
I'm excited to see Decker came come back. Yeah, it's I mean, it's super nostalgic. And Deckard's coming back in a way where it's like it's got unfinished business. He's got some regrets. He feels a little guilty about it. And so when you experience it, you get to it'll make sense. And you're like, yeah, yeah, how can I help Deckard get through some of this? I feel like the bond, it gets even tighter after you finish the story and in the season that's coming up. Then just from a pure fan nostalgia moment, like just hearing that voice, I just want to hang out, man. And when we did the demo, we didn't have his voice in there. I'm like, no, we at least need to give me a poem, set the stage, tease up what we're about ready to get to.
And so it's been really wonderful to play with Deckard as a character and really bring him back in a way that I think is befitting to him before he resolves his business and needs to go back to the land of the dead.
Any plans to keep the new content in postseason?
Yeah, some stuff will move forward. Some of the stuff that we have in the season, we tend to put to rest, and for good reason. Sometimes to go to Eternal, you have to make some changes in order for it to be repeatable in a way that is good for Eternal. I don't have a roadmap to show what that exactly means. But I also know that, hey, you know, now that we have this, maybe we revisit and turn something into a capstone later on in the future. So once we have this all developed, it's all stuff we get to play with season upon season, and that's always on the top of the developer's minds.
With no expansions announced, do seasons start to take on a little bit more weight?
As we're moving on, we're spending more and more time in seasons. I think everybody can see that. it'll put a focus on build novelty. We're going to put more effort into build novelty for sure. Quality of life features, like we're adding rebirth. Some people are like, oh, well, that's cute. For some people, that's a big deal for people who play a lot of seasons and a lot of alts. And so I think you'll start seeing us get to some of those things.
So yeah, are seasons a heavier influence? Yeah, it has a heavier influence for sure.
How will the new content appeal to gamers new to Diablo?
It's amazing that some people who started season 13 and have never been introduced to Diablo before. Now you're going to get to see, you know, a snippet of Bale, a snippet of Mephisto. My hope is, is that people who aren't familiar with this stuff get excited and they go check it out, right? We do a great job at keeping our previous games up and running and supported. And if you've never experienced the entire journey of Diablo 3, hopefully you go check it out. If you haven't played Diablo 1 in a while, that's a trip. Four hours in and out, it's totally worth it.
So, I'm hoping what this does is introduce some nostalgia in a different way for those new players that create some curiosity.
What was it like bringing classic bosses into Diablo 4?
Diablo himself is a good example, right? That D1 Diablo. He didn't really do much. Great nostalgia. The way that I like to talk about it is there's a feeling you had when you fought them. Make sure we get that feeling. We have definitely added to make sure that the experience holds up to it like a legit fight with a Diablo 4 character. You see it in the demo. You get a good snippet of that. And then obviously we scale that all the way through Torment 13 and go from like, hey, it was fun to do that too to, oh my God, this is hard. So yes, there has been some evolutions as we've introduced the bosses, but it's done on top of making sure we meet the spirit first.
Did the team play the original games?
I can't speak for every individual who decided to do that. But yeah, there's a lot of us that just went back and played the OG versions. I mean, obviously, we don't have updated visuals for Diablo 1, right? So, but again, that's a quick experience that was really fun to go after. But yeah, you go back and you play the game and try to recreate that memory that you may have had decades ago. You watch some videos because we've got developers on our team that probably were barely born when the content came out. And you're like, no, no, no, trust me. Trust me. That was awesome. But it was really fun to just kind of go back and enjoy it for a moment and then come back as fans and implement it.
Yeah, I mean, there, there are just things you have to have. It's like if we didn't go back to Tristram, people would be like, what the heck, man? Like, seriously? So we, we know how much we can fit into a season. We exceeded that because we had passion for some of the stuff that had to come in. I think that's why you see so much continuity. We can't without that.
The Amazon
What goes into the class selection process?
There's always a competition. So, we do a really good job at paying attention to the fans and what classes they wanted next. Like, we knew the Paladin had to come out when the Paladin came out, right? At the same time, we were still in the middle of developing Lord of Hatred, and the Amazons were really starting to take shape.
So, the opportunity to have the 30th anniversary, the fact that we had an opening in our class lineup, and next up in that roster on who wanted, what was the next favorite, was the Amazon, it just kind of all clicked. And so, it made it really easy for us to make a decision on bringing the Amazon back, and we knew that everybody would be pretty excited to see that happen that way.
What makes the Amazon different from the other classes?
Yeah, for us, it's really always, that is the question, right? Classes are there to give people variety, to find something that fits them, right? So, for us, it's always starting off with the pillars, and then driving into those, right?
So, for Amazon, I think we've said, she's an expert soldier with unrivaled athleticism, mythical magic, and to us, each of those defines to some extent how she's different than the rogue, right? Or how she's different than the barbarian, right? She's not just someone who fights, she's actually a soldier, she's trained, she's disciplined, right? That's very different than the barbarian or the rogue. She's an unrivaled athlete, right? That's compared to, like, the spirit-borne, which is much more, like, fluid and dynamic. She is like all Olympic athletes rolled into one, that sort of thing, right? And that's really how we do it.
The Amazon is gender-locked, any plans for additional gender-locked characters like the Witch?
Honestly, the big focus right now is on the Amazon. You know, speaking to any additional classes, like I said, we keep good track over where players would like to see this go. And looking for those openings in our roster on where there may be power fantasies that don't exist yet.
It's like the witch is a good example. It's like how much overlap with the sort would we see if we were to introduce that stuff? That's the way that we go through our decision making. But right now, as far as like future plans and how we're we're looking at that, we have nothing to really announce or discuss at this time.
We’re really focused on defining the play styles that the Amazon can have. And part of that is also distinguishing her from like Rogue, for instance, another range class. We really see Rogue as kind of that scrappy fighter, that sort of thing, shotgunning people in the face with arrows. Whereas the Amazon is much more of that long range sniper, heavy artillery kind of class, but that's like one of four. At the same time, we also have a javelin. And so this is actually a class that, unlike the Rogue, well technically the Rogue has two ranged weapons, but they essentially do the same thing. Whereas the Amazon has a bow and a javelin, and we want those to feel distinct. We're not just adding a weapon for aesthetics.
So that's something we're really doubling down on, is making each of the weapons that she wields have unique identities that will sort of change the way she plays as well as sort of transform her skills in different ways. Because if you think back to the Amazon in D2, something that we really want to sort of extract, that she did really well as kind of one of these first ARPG classes, is she kind of had like evolving skills.
You think about going from chilling to freezing to frozen, exploding arrows, or take the pierced passive even in the passive tree that amplifies the way your skill works. Having different numbers of projectiles as skills level up, that sort of thing. So to really feel that progression in your skills, it's almost like Pokemon evolution of your skills. And so we really want to see that progression with her, like really shine through, because that's such like an inherent iconic kind of part of her.
So that's kind of where we see it in the end game, and we'll try to do it without, you know, hopefully melting our servers too much when we just explode the lightning theories everywhere, but that's really the goal. And I cannot wait to see Amazon on top of leaderboards. I think that would be justice.
Dungeons
What are the dungeons like leading to the Primevals?
It's pretty classic. You know, we're not looking to radically change the formula. And so every dungeon is designed in a way that helps us tell this specific nostalgic story. So, it varies from dungeon to dungeon. But, you know, it definitely fits the flow that we have for a normal D4 dungeon, obviously ending with the Primevals in a fight that is fitting for them.
Encounters
What goes into designing encounters?
Well, first off, we've gotten into a flow where making more content for the game is very, very natural. I mean, the designers are spending more time in the tools, and they're being able to, you know, second-guess themselves a lot less. And, you know, we know it's working for the game now, so it's easy to make more stuff that fits what works for the game. But the other thing is, the luxury of having nostalgia, we know what it should feel like. We've seen it in the other games. Even if the interpretation isn't one-to-one, we know how we felt. And so that allowed us to cut to the chase. We didn't have to imagine, over-imagine something new. It's just, like, get to the thing you felt when you were playing X previous game. And boy, has that allowed us to get a lot of bosses into this game. And I think the fans are going to just absolutely love that variety.
Diablo V
Will Diablo IV’s seasons set the stage for Diablo V?
Yeah, that's a great question. So first off, the events of D5 happened 100 years after the events of D4. So that's a massive amount of time. But the Lord of Terror is also learning from what happened from the Lord of Hate, right? And so what that's going to do is give us a lot of creative space to continue to tell story between those two moments in time. We know where we're wanting to go with the story, and we're experimenting with a lot of that. But the cool thing is three years is a long time, so we get to play for a while, and where the story could lead us, where the fan theories are going to go, we don't know yet. And I think that's awesome, and we have a big lore window to experiment with in that time. We are one team and we're constantly learning.
So, we are one big team, you know, and so do you find Joe Shelley is everywhere. Now we know, you know, it's one of those things that this has been the plan all along is to get to the five and we've been talking about what that road means and we're still talking about what that road means we still got three years left. And so, you know, as we make decisions, we are moving around and staying agile and trying to do this as best as possible.
The impact on the team with the announcement were elated. You know, it sucks to talk in code names and keep secrets. And now we could be like, yes, we're doing this. Well, what are you doing? That's when we say we can't talk. But it is a relief, you know, and so we can actually be a little more open minded. We can hear from people and that's going to affect our decision making. So that it's a relief.
I don't really mind if you're wearing the sign in the middle of Times Square that says the end is nigh. The end is not nigh. We have a lot coming. I mean, we've got the Amazon coming down the road, right? Like the train isn't stopping. And one of the things that I love about our world is we're not a series of games. We are a universe. We are even adding to Diablo 2 with the Warlock. Like it's one of the few franchises where we have the luxury to continue to play. And we know our communities are there. Multiple communities that make us a whole. And so if you're worried, don't sweat it because we're going to be making content for a long time. But we are excited about Diablo 5. We are excited about getting to the story of terror. So yeah, we got a lot of things coming. The train is not stopping. We got the show coming along on the way. Like, hold on tight. Gone are the years of waiting 10 years for more content. Both games kind of continue their development paths.
Will there be continued support for Diablo IV after Diablo V’s release?
We're planning on supporting seasons as long as the community continues to show up in D4. Similar to what we have with D2 and D3, there are still people that are playing those games. And as long as you're showing up, we're going to continue to be making content.
Diablo IV on Switch
What was it like bringing Diablo IV to the Switch?
Yeah, first off, it's about damn time. I think that's how Dan Hay said it at opening ceremonies. We've wanted it on the Switch for a very long time. It's a big game. I think we've had moments where, like, it's impossible. There's no way we could do it. But the team that took that on, boy, did they do an amazing job. And so if you haven't played it, please do. The concessions we had to make are barely noticeable. I'm so impressed. There are some things that we have to do for performance, you know, obviously. But I think the expectation once you're going to handheld, we nailed it.
You know, it's locked. You know, it once you get your hands on it. It's fluid. It's easily readable. I love the Switch's screen. And so it pops very nicely on that screen.
It was challenging. And, you know, but ultimately, I think it was worth the wait for how much work we had to put into getting it in there.