Diablo 4 will feature class-specific quests to delve into the history of the Rogue

Class quests are coming to Diablo 4… at least for the recently-revealed Rogue class. The Rogue’s quests will give you an opportunity to serve three different Rogue-only factions: remnants of the original Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye from Diablo 1‘s Rogue class, the mercenaries of Kehjistan, and the outlaw smugglers of Hawezar. Completing each quest line will reward access to each group’s unique Rogue specialization: combo points, exploit weakness, and shadow realm. These specializations offer three distinct ways to engage in combat against the forces of Hell.

But this type of quest is — at least for now — unique to the Rogue. Joe Piepiora, Lead Systems Designer for Diablo 4, explained that the goal is to make each class feel unique:

What we don’t want to do is say ‘hey, the Barbarian should have three Barbarian factions they need to go do quests for to get Barbarian skills,’ because that would make the Barbarian feel like the Rogue. We want to make sure that the different classes have different things stand out for them.

Each class will have some kind of unique way to explore its background, but it may not quite be a class quest — or at least not the same kind of class quest as the Rogue.

Every class is going to have its own things like that… ish. I can’t commit to anything, but we want do make sure the classes have things that make them feel unique. So when you play the Druid after playing the Rogue, the Druid has something special that you didn’t know about that feels really cool now that you get to experience it.

Perhaps that means each class will have a different style of class quest, or perhaps it means something completely different. Regardless, there’s a big focus on making each class feel unique, and for the Rogue that means making connections with various Rogue-adjacent groups.

Class-specific quest lines have been a feature of World of Warcraft even since the Classic era, but they’ve never been included in a Diablo game before. As someone who completed the Hunter quest line for Rhok’Delar back in 2005, I’m extremely excited to see what Diablo can bring to the table. WoW’s Legion expansion proved that class-specific content is extremely popular. The class halls, spec-specific Artifact weapons, class mounts, and storylines were a huge hit. I think creating similarly unique experiences for Diablo‘s classes will also prove to be a great choice.

After all, there’s a huge amount of lore for the classes in Diablo, but the games themselves haven’t really explored that lore in full. Diablo 3 featured some nods to a player’s class, mostly in terms of dialogue. There’s a huge opportunity in Diablo 4 to help the player really understand and identify with their class like never before. We can delve into the background of our character, their culture, their history, their motivation for fighting the way they fight. Let’s hope that the other classes will have experiences that are just as interesting.