Blizzard and CDPR Explain Why Diablo IV’s Geralt Skin Is for Barbarian

Barbarians and Geralt have a lot in common.

Blizzard Entertainment recently held a presentation dedicated to Diablo IV. The developers of the action RPG finally revealed details about the crossover with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

As many players expected, Diablo IV is adding cosmetic content styled after The Witcher franchise, but there is a catch. Geralt’s appearance is a skin for the Barbarian class. This choice by the developers raised questions among some players.

CD Projekt RED Lead Level Designer Miles Tost explained that the team enjoys collaborations of this kind. During the process, they try to imagine how the two worlds can successfully collide while showing respect to the source materials:

From a creative standpoint, things like this are very interesting for us because they put us—the creators—before a challenge: 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 reviews projects, it tries to find common ground. When preparing content in Geralt’s style, the choice quickly fell on the Barbarian class because they, much like the witcher, are the embodiment of physical strength and share many similarities:

Studying the list of available classes in Diablo to find one for which we can add content inspired by Geralt, we fairly quickly settled on the Barbarian. [Geralt and the Barbarian] are both the embodiment of physical strength. They have trained all their lives to become incredibly strong and powerful melee fighters. The Barbarian is capable of carrying multiple weapon models at the same time. Geralt does not 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 franchise from CD Projekt RED. Thematic content styled after the anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is in development for Overwatch.

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