Can you Play the Spiritborn Without Vessel of Hatred in Diablo 4?

Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred adds the Spiritborn, a new class players can use to replay the base game or jump straight into the expansion. Vessel of Hatred promises to bring with it a slew of new features and content alongside a brand new season for players to enjoy. The savvy among you might be asking: Can you play as the Spiritborn without the expansion in Diablo 4? It may help to know what the Spiritborn class is all about first.

Can You Play The Spiritborn Without Vessel of Hatred in Diablo 4

The Spiritborn is a highly mobile class specializing in aggressive, frantic combat. Spiritborn channel animal spirits to unleash a multitude of abilities. These range from powerful counterattacks, to stacking poisons, to generating huge bonuses to dodge and block chances. Spiritborn excel at close range, and have excellent mobility. Their great evasion and life steal abilities make them an excellent class for solo play as well. Many of the Spiritborn’s skills work in tandem to heal themselves, stack debuffs on enemies, and deal damage while jumping across the battlefield. Here’s a brief overview of each animal spirit and what they excel at:

• The Eagle: Mobility, evasion, and inflicting “vulnerable” on enemies
• The Jaguar: Attack speed, cooldown reduction, and resource generation
• The Gorilla: Damage reduction, barrier generation, and crowd control
• The Centipede: Poison, damage over time, and lifesteal

You can’t play as the Spiritborn without purchasing Vessel of Hatred. However, any version of the expansion you buy will unlock the class for you. You don’t need to play as the Spiritborn to access the new campaign. Purchasing the expansion also allows you to play through the base campaign of Diablo 4 as the Spiritborn as well. Finally, if you’ve already completed the Vessel of Hatred campaign on a different character, you can skip both the base and expansion campaigns on a new Spiritborn character if you’d like.

Hopefully this answers any questions you have about the Spiritborn, and assists you in making an informed decision. Vessel of Hatred adds more than just a new class and campaign to Diablo 4. It sees the return of familiar mechanics such as Runes and Rune Words, and introduces new ones like Mercenary companions and the Undercity. Whether you’re going to skip the campaign or play through the entirety of Diablo 4’s story as the Spiritborn, it may prove useful to know the fastest ways to level up in Diablo 4.

Diablo 4 and its expansion, Vessel of Hatred, are available for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.