BlizzCon 2026 was chock-full of big and exciting announcements for all of Blizzards IPs, and Diablo was no different. They had a huge announcement for an upcoming animated series partnering with Netflix, a Diablo V teaser, and of course Season 15 for Diablo IV. Season 15 is bringing in some huge content drops that will be sure to instill a bit of nostalgia for long time fans. Since it is also the 30th anniversary, they are bringing back and reimaging some old classic content to bring through to Diablo IV. Things like iconic gear, enemies and bosses, as well as dungeons and encounters. The goal is to keep that “wow” factor you felt the first time, but update it to fit into Diablo IV. We are even seeing the return of the big bad himself, Diablo, as well the iconic Deckard Cain with the original voice actor.

There is so much good stuff coming and the team seems really invigorated by their current plans. During BlizzCon 2026 I was able to be apart of a group interview with Brent Gibson, the game director, and Bjorn Nicholson, the senior game designer to go over the exciting stuff coming to Diablo. Keep in mind, this was a group interview, I was not able to catch the other outlets names that were in the room so this is presented as a Q&A of sorts.

There is a ton coming this season. Buckle up!

Q: So, with this new season of Hell’s Legacy celebrating the 30th anniversary, what went into deciding who you’re bringing back and what content you’re bringing back and adapting it to Diablo IV?

Brent Gibson: 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 about fans, or 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, you know, focusing around those, 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. You know, the “Where’s Diablo?” We’ve been hearing that for a very, very long time. How do we do that just coming off of beating Mephisto? And 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. And so, really, started with the core “you must-haves” like that, and then having fun with the rest of the flavor as we went along.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your class selection process? Do you have the new classes all planned in advance, or is there a competition?

Brent Gibson: 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 Patron, 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 we 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.

Q: Mike Minotti (Giant Bomb): With so many classes in the game already, what steps do you have to take to make the Amazon kind of stand out and feel unique?

Bjorn Nicholson: 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, like, each of those defines, to some extent, like, 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 born, 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 main big bad is finally coming back, along with some friends!

Q: How does it feel to finally have Diablo in Diablo IV?

Brent Gibson: Look, 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 will, you know, as we’re making expansions, that was the focus. But we too, we’re 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.

Q: Matt (MMORPG.com): As it relates to, you know, designing, building out the Twisted Waking Nightmare dungeons, specifically, like, the ones leading to the Prime Evils, I mean, what are players in for as far as, like, time to run through those things initially?

Brent Gibson: 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 the specific nostalgic story. So it varies from dungeon to dungeon. But, you know, it definitely fits the flow that we have for normal D4 dungeon, obviously ending with the Prime Evils in a fight that is fitting for them.

Q: So, something that many other developers also talk about often is that encounter design takes a considerable amount of time. What did you change in your process to allow you to create so many different encounters for Hell’s Legacy?

Brent Gibson: 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 when we’re 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 1-to-1, 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.

Q: The Amazon will be the main draw about this expansion. So I wanted to know if you were our ready, or wanting to tell us the price of this?

Brent Gibson: We’re not talking price yet, no, but I am excited to the fact that we don’t have to wait to release classes, right and so we can get out there and get them out there in a way that I think is fitting for those classes. 

The Amazon is back, and she’s looking better than ever!

Q: Considering that there’s seasonal – a tremendous – seasonal content on the way that, I assume the D5 launch and considering Diablo’s influence will be back. Would you say that this upcoming seasonal content, in addition to the ones after, will be sort of setting the stage or like, you know, Building the story I guess, leading up to D5?

Brent Gibson: Yeah, that’s a 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 happens from the Lord of Hate, right?

So what that’s going to do is give us a lot of creative space to continue to tell story between those 2 moments in time, we know where we’re wanting to go with the story, and we’re experimenting with a lot of that you heard Dan talk about. We have an arc in play right now, super excited for that arc, but the cool thing is 3 years is a long time, so we get to play for a while, and I get, you know, 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 like lore window to experiment with in that time. 

Q: For each season of Diablo, you guys are have introduced mechanical changes, what are some challenges of like, you know, introducing, like production like prototypes, and what are some that like have you guys have introduced like you’ve really, really been fond of? 

Brent Gibson: That’s a gossip question. That’s the 2 part questions. So first off the game is truck full of stuff, right? So complexity can become a problem, we have more activities, and 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 you know, adjusting the mechanics along the way.

So that’s a lot of the challenge now that some of the stuff I do like like we knew, we needed more control or more player agency over the endgame, and so introducing war plans was pretty amazing, because we designed the system to flex season to season like what we’re doing with season. Season of Hell’s Legacy, we’re letting the Splinters of Evil, have an impact not only on your player power, but it’s going to feed into those war plans as well. And so we’ve got a very flexible system now which I love that allows us to really mess with the Meta and the endgame, at the same time season upon season.

Q: So I’m a pretty new Diablo player. I actually picked it up after a good friend of mine got me into it. I started in season 13. So my question for you, as someone who’s coming into this fairly new is, do you guys have any plans to build a player recommendation to put at the beginning of the game? Because I didn’t know about war plans or anything like that. And it really affected how I played Season 14. I ended up rushing through Lord of Hatred because I needed war plans really badly.

Brent: Let me ask you a question, did you start at Lord of Hatred? Or did you start at the beginning, beginning?

Q: I started at the beginning, beginning and then abandoned it. And then I played Vessel (of Hatred) all the way through and then I played Lord (of Hatred) and my friend was like, you have to get war plans or I cannot play with you. And I was like, wow.

Brent: Yeah, so it’s important to us that we are trying to accommodate every on ramp to the game, uh, that we have. And thank you for joining. Um, so we take great care and time in trying to onboard people as best as we can. My recommendation for any new player is to have the patience to go through the whole thing so that you’re getting everything introduced to you at the end of the great times. And for those friends who bully you into rushing that, tell them to sit and stay awhile.

Q: The FOMO is not cool. And they’re like, you’re going to miss  out on the season. And I’m like, you’ve got to calm down. I’m a level six.

Brent: We’ve experimented with all sorts of things to just kind of like help players understand. We’ve looked at tool tips. We’ve tried making sure that certain things like the Horadice Cube gets introduced during the campaign so you understand it. Do that as best as possible. Yeah. But it’s a big game, live service. And so, you know, there’s a little bit of like, if you’re in that spot, take, you know, take the time to go through it if you can. But we continue to improve that onboarding experience every day.

Q: Working with modern day dev kits, does this hasten development and does help you in exploring additional classes?

Brent: That’s a great question. It doesn’t necessarily hasten it. It crystallizes the ideation, right? So it’s like, okay, cool. That variable is nice and locked. So let’s get in there and make sure that everything is as high quality as possible. And we can really invest into it, which I think is, is really great. But it, you know, as far as speed is concerned, we like to develop. So, you know, get a little more time.

We’re going to put a little more love into it. And that’s, that’s where we’re at on that. As far as like seeing that more in anything in the future, the decision was more about like, is it correct that this class and this fantasy and this rule? And it was. And that, that was a really big, the big driver is making sure that the, that we were representing Amazon as the Amazon should be. So in the future, we have other classes that would feel that would feel that way. That’s the, probably the same exact decision making.

Q: So to go back to player onboarding. With you focused having a very interconnected story between all these seasons, has there been a chance or option available yet, or in the future, to make it, to that players to play through this sorting, optimal bosses, when they onboard, and that would be very helpful for clans, for new players to really feel like they are a part of this.

Brent: I mean, it’s always on top of the discussion. Um, there are no plans right now. Um, to, to talk about, um, one of the things I do love is we have a very robust content creator community. And so if you are lost, you can hit up, that’s why we have Rhykker here. There are, there are gaps in this 30 years that I had to go to Rhykker and be like, can you remind me of this thing?

Um, so yeah, it is a big, deep game and we definitely understand players getting stuck into that situation from time to time. Um, but currently we are, we are developing forward and we’ve got a lot of content to come. So we’re putting our focus on getting to that new stuff, with as much time as we can possibly take.

Q: How was it bringing D4 to the Switch 2, and where there any troubles porting it?

Brent: Yeah, that’s… first off it’s about damn time. I think that’s how they say said that in the open ceremonies. We’ve wanted it on on the Switch for a very long time. Uh, it’s a big game, I think we’ve had moments where we were like it’s impossible there’s no way we could do it. The team that took that on, oh 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’s some things that we have to do for performance, you know obviously, but I think the expectations in what you want is nailed. You know, it’s locked (Frame Rate) you know, it’s 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. So it was challenging and you know, but ultimately, I think it was worth the wait for how much work we had to put in.

Playing Diablo IV on the Switch 2 is perfect. A match made in… hell?

Q: Will there be anymore upcoming classes and characters or anything like that, and how do you balance the game when adding in the extra classes?

Brent: Honestly, the big focus right now is on the Amazon. You know, speaking to any additional classes, like I said, we keep good track of where players would like to see this go. And looking for those openings in our roster and where there are maybe power fantasies that don’t exist yet. It’s like, which is a good example. It’s like how much overlap would we see if we were to reduce that stuff. That’s the way that we make people through our decision making. But right now, as far as like future plans and how we’re looking at that, we have nothing to really have to discuss at this time.

Q: How much of the focus when revisiting some of the older areas from D1, and D2 was on the bosses versus the mobs?

Brent: Yeah, so you’ll see a lot of mob content coming back as well. One of those things, like working backwards from the moment in time in which you’ve experiences. And so yes, you will see some of that stuff. I think we showed some on the panel today. Yeah, the Scarabs. And the way that Owen talks about it is hilarious – Sorry, I’m reflecting on his energy – But yes, so starter boss working your way backwards. And so you’ll be seeing some of that stuff introduced when you’re in those experiences.

Q: I’m excited to see Deckard Cain come back. So I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about that process of kind of reviving this classic character, this beloved character, and maybe how much fun it is to make new stuff for him?

Brent: Yeah, I mean, it’s super nostalgic. And Deckard’s coming back in a way where it’s like, he’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? And so I feel like the bond, it gets even tighter after you finish the story in the season that’s coming up.

Lilith was looking great at BlizzCon 2026!

The Horadice Cube at BlizzCon 2026!

Diablo was pretty menacing up close and personal.