Blizzard Entertainment recently held a presentation dedicated to Diablo IV. The ARPG developers finally revealed the details of the collaboration with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
As many players expected, Diablo IV decided to add cosmetic content in the style of The Witcher franchise, but there's a catch. Geralt's appearance is a skin for Barbarian class characters. This choice by the developers raised questions among some players.
CD Projekt RED Lead Level Designer Miles Tost explained that the team likes such collaborations. In the process, they try to imagine how to successfully "clash" both worlds to be respectful of the projects:
From a creative perspective, these things are very interesting for us because they challenge us – the creators – with the task: how to make these worlds collide in a way that is respectful to both source materials, in this case, Diablo and The Witcher.
Therefore, Miles Tost explains, when CD Projekt RED considers projects, they try to find common ground. When preparing content in Geralt's style, the choice quickly fell on the "Barbarian" class, because they, like the witcher, are the embodiment of physical strength; they have a lot in common:
Looking through the list of available classes in Diablo for one to which we could add Geralt-inspired content, we pretty quickly landed on the Barbarian. [Geralt and the Barbarian] are both the embodiment of physical strength. They have trained their entire lives to become incredibly strong and powerful melee fighters. The Barbarian is capable of wielding multiple weapon models simultaneously. Geralt doesn't use them simultaneously, but he has two swords: the famous steel one for humans, and the silver one for monsters.
Blizzard Entertainment is also working with another popular CD Projekt RED franchise. Themed content in the style of the anime series "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners" is being prepared for Overwatch.