Diablo III Interview

Kotaku has published an article-style interview that they conducted with Diablo III art director Christian Lichtner and designer Jason Bender during BlizzCon about the game’s newly revealed Demon Hunter profession. Personally, I think they were listening to the fans on this one more than any of the others:

“We knew from the get go that we wanted to do a ranged class,” Lichtner said. “Through coincidence we kept having to put it off. We’d introduce a new class, get excited by that, and we’d have to put it off. But when we got to the fifth class, we knew it was going to be ranged.

Lichtner told me that the class was designed to serve as a counter to the holy Monk. “We really wanted to create a class that contrasted the Monk. We’re looking at the lineup and we went ‘Look, if you want to play a darker class, a little bit more mysterious, a little bit more on the scarier side, which one would you want to play?’ There’s the Witch Doctor, which is amazing, but we wanted to give you a little more choice with the Demon Hunter.”

Bender concurred. “She’s pretty brutal; pretty angsty. We wanted to go double-dark with this character, to be really gnarly with it.”

The decision to go dark gave Blizzard plenty of inspiration, and the Demon Hunter features some of the darkest, most painful-looking attacks, especially the traps. “The spike trap seems pretty cool,” said Bender, “And then you see it, and it’s just awful. You don’t want to get near it.”