Diablo Immortal devs talk Tempest class, crossovers & returning characters

Diablo Immortal’s next class, the storm-infused Tempest is nearly here. Two of the game’s leading developers, Ryan Quinn and John Yoo told us all about the class as well as what they have planned for the future of Diablo Immortal.

At least at first glance, the Tempest class appears to be an amalgamation of various other classes, such as the Rogue, Wizard, and Monk, but powered by the elements. We asked Quinn and Yoo about how the Tempest class differentiates itself from previous classes in Diablo Immortal.

Quinn said: “One way in which the Tempest differentiates is in their passive ability called Mist-Touched. As the Tempest fights, they passively conjure these phantoms called zephyrs around them. They don’t need to equip an active skill, instead, these beings emerge from the mist while you’re fighting enemies.

“You can summon up to three of them at a time and what they do is passively echo or duplicate the skills that the Tempest is using, creating what we call the Triangle of Death. We found this was a cool differentiator, beyond the aesthetics.

“Then there’s the narrative part, in contrast to other classes, the Tempest is a light-tone character as opposed to the very dark classes like the Necromancer, Blood Knight, etc. They are also not strictly speaking holy characters like the Monk or Crusader.”

The Tempest isn’t the first time Diablo Immortal has used the sea and storms as inspiration, with various updates being nautically themed in recent years. We asked the developers about this creative decision and why the game has been leaning into it.

Quinn said, “I think we want to strike a fine balance between what’s familiar in Immortal and what’s new. We don’t just want to give people what they’re expecting, we want to take the opportunity to expand the boundaries of this timeline and develop what we see as the unique voice of Immortal.

“To do that, we want to go to far corners, to places that players don’t know about and can’t expect, because we haven’t talked about them very much. So we’ve found that sailing and islands in the far west and the far north are our best friends when it comes to expanding the canon of the game.”

As the Tempest is the second brand new Diablo class to be added to Immortal in the last 12 months, we asked both developers about the creative decisions to make new classes rather than opting for an established one.

Yoo said: “It’s on a case-by-case basis, we won’t always try to create brand-new classes that are new to the Diablo universe. It’s more of a mixture of what we feel is missing in the game. So with the Tempest, we wanted another light-based class, but typically when we do a light-based class it’s holy in theme.

“So, we wanted to get away from that direction. That’s how the Tempest evolved and how the elements of wind and water came into play here. We had a lot of positive reactions to the Blood Knight as it was a brand new class that people had never seen before. That’s why we thought the Tempest would be a great idea for our second new class.”

We then asked if we could expect to see more new classes added to Diablo Immortal after the Tempest, or if any older classes will be added to the game in the future.

Yoo said: “Not to say that we’ll always add new classes to the game, we can’t be sure what we’ll do next, but I think it’s going to be a mixture between introducing a new class or bringing up an existing class. It’s also about listening to feedback from players and figuring out what they want, then there’s timing, and so many other factors that go into the decision.”

Quinn said: “We launched with six icons, six familiar classes, you know, the Necro, the Crusader, the Monk, so, we love the old stuff as much as the new stuff. We love chasing our tails and coming up with new ideas, but we also have a lot of reverence for this property. Most of us grew up and have been playing as far back as Diablo 1.”

As Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4 have crossed over several times, with events involving Lilith or the Blood Knight class being added to Immortal while Diablo 4 had a season focused on vampires, we asked both developers if there will be more crossovers.

Quinn said: “While we can’t confirm we’ll do anything [Diablo 4 related] with the Tempest or their homeland, what I will say is we meet with all the other Diablo teams on a regular basis. We’re all trying to enlarge and make the world of Sanctuary feel more special.

“As we started talking about the Blood Knight, you saw some of the early results of that with Diablo 4’s Season of Blood. We have been talking to them about the Tempest for a hot minute, whether or not another Diablo team wants to do something with that is entirely up to them. But we ping-pong ideas back and forth constantly in both directions.”

Finally, we asked Quinn and Yoo about the looming threat of Diablo himself in Immortal, and if any other previous villains could appear. After all, the game is set between Diablo 2 and 3, meaning various former enemies are still on the rampage in the game’s story.

Quinn said: “Obviously, the shadow of Diablo is what’s exerting the most villain gravity on our world. We’ve been building up to that for so long that we want to make sure the spotlight continues to widen on the Lord of Terror.

“But, we also know there are more unknown and new villains that we can unearth. So, I’d tell you to expect both of those things, new villains, but also, expect to see some returning faces.”

The Tempest class will be added to Diablo Immortal on May 23, 2024.