Last week, Blizzard Entertainment announced the full details behind its upcoming limited-time crossover event between Diablo 4 and Diablo Immortal and Berserk, the long-running dark fantasy manga created by the late Kentaro Miura. Beginning on May 1 for Diablo Immortal and May 6 for Diablo 4, players will be able to collect cosmetics themed after characters and weapons inspired by the manga, which first began publication in 1989.
On Monday, Polygon attended a roundtable interview with Viviane Kosty and Emil Salim, the lead artists for Diablo 4 and Diablo Immortal, respectively, to discuss the process of adapting Miura’s iconic universe to the setting of Diablo, how they went about choosing which characters and monsters to highlight from the manga, and how Miura’s original artwork inspired them not only while working on the in-game crossover, but as artists themselves.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
“We really saw that it was a natural fit right from the very beginning,” Salim said. “It fits with Diablo on a story level; the story of Berserk is really, really dark. It’s a dark fantasy, it’s full of violence, endless war, desperation, so it’s perfect for us. And then on the visual side, too, it’s also a perfect fit. The works of Kentaro Miura through Berserk have already been a huge influence for a lot of dark fantasy artists for many, many years. And so for us, in the Diablo Immortal team, when we first got the confirmation that it was going to be Berserk, we were super excited. We already had so many ideas of, like, Oh, we can do this and we can do this. So yeah, the whole process just felt really easy because both brands just kind of complemented each other so well.”
“I would say, challenge-wise, compared to previous collaborations within Blizzard IPs, I would say the past ones have been a learning experience for us where it allowed us to make better decisions this time around to make sure that we can honor both IPs at the same time,” Kosty said. “We really wanted to highlight and also pay tribute to Berserk as well as stay true to our gameplay as well.”
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
When asked how the team went about choosing from the manga’s colossal cast of characters for the crossover, Salim and Kosty were ecstatic to explain in more detail. “I was geeking out with Vivian and thinking back about our process really early on; we compared it to a buffet,” Salim told Polygon. “It was like a buffet of characters and story points and weapons and everything we could possibly think of, so obviously we cannot do everything. So for the modal side, we decided to focus in on the Golden Age arc, which is the very first one that triggered Guts, the main character’s entire journey for the rest of the manga series. It [gave] us a lot of materials to play with, including the eclipse, which is sort of like the climax of the Golden Age arc. So for example, in Diablo Immortal, we were able to use the eclipse as the central theme for our Struggler’s Bane event. There’s also so many more, like even the very first battle against Nosferatu Zodd. That was so, so significant for the manga. Being able to recreate that original battle for the boss fight in the collab was very significant for us.”
When asked about their thoughts on Kentaro Miura’s legacy and the influence of his artwork on their own, both Salim and Kosty were equally passionate and enthusiastic in their appraisal of Miura’s talents as an illustrator and storyteller. “I feel like the way he depicted motion and action and emotion, and I think those were what just hit me the hardest, because I really can feel the frustration in Guts,” Kosty said. “Or when he’s swinging his sword and cutting things, you can really feel how swift it is, how clean-cut his swordplay is. I think that’s what hits me the most as an artist, it’s that I can kind of feel his [brushstrokes] and it makes me geek out a lot.” She particularly complimented Miura on his stroke markings, which she and the rest of the Diablo 4 art team tried to emphasize in the character models, particularly in the cape textures of the Skull Knight and Griffith armor skins.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
“For me, the work of Kentaro Miura has influenced me since I was very, very young,” Salim says. “I can go way back: That’s how I learned how to draw a human face. That’s how I learned about weapon design, armor design, before I even knew that there was such a thing as weapon design or armor design, or that people actually get paid to do these things, which is insane. It’s how I learned how to draw horses, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you are a huge, huge fan of Berserk, you can almost see how his works in a way got even better throughout the years. Going from the Golden Age arc and how he renders people to the Millennium Falcon arc, he matured so much. Also, how he does motion, that’s another thing that as a very young artist, that’s how I learned how to apply ink work and how to apply pen work to convey motion, and also how he can almost choreograph his battles through a still image on a manga page, which is insane. That’s something that’s really difficult to convey. There is no animation; it’s a book, it’s manga. So yeah, it’s really, really well done.”
Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4 players will be able to see for themselves how Blizzard’s art team managed to bring Kentaro Miura’s characters and concepts to life when the collaboration goes live.
