Diablo 3's Male Hunter Inspired by Eastwood?

Friday Blizzard revealed another playable character from the upcoming action/RPG game Diablo 3: the male version of the Demon Hunter class. The female version was previously revealed last fall during BlizzCon 2010, a sexier-yet-edgy counterpart to the new Clint Eastwood/Trent Reznor-inspired character shown today.

"This is a class where you get to play at being a little bit on the edgy side," said art director Christian Lichtner in an exclusive reveal with Eurogamer. "This is a class that knows things about demons that no other class knows. They understand the nature of the conflict that Sanctuary is in - they understand that it's a fight between heaven and hell."

Lichtner said the male Demon Hunter was dark and moody, someone you wouldn't want to meet in an alley. "He's definitely the most stylish, most metropolitan of our characters," added senior designer Jason Bender. "He's got a modern sensibility in that regard. I think of Trent Reznor when I look at him."

Originally the Demon Hunter was more like a Ranger, resembling Aragon from The Lord of the Rings. Ultimately the team felt that the class needed a little bit of a twist, and experimented with various themes and weapons. According to Lichtner, the team went through "round after round" of iterations before settling on the final version.

"People would be surprised at how much thought and design goes into each class," Lichtner said. "As a result, both on the male and the female side, we talk to both genders to see how appealing each class is to them. We want to make sure that when we create our female classes they aren't overly objectified. These are not your standard high fantasy characters. On the male side it's the same idea. We want these to be believable characters that feel like they have a real background; that there's some meat behind them."

The male Demon Hunter now completes the Diablo 3 roster, joining the female Demon Hunter and the male and female Monk, Barbarian, Witch Doctor and Wizard classes.

Last week Blizzard's Rob Pardo said that the team was pushing to get Diablo 3 on shelves by the end of the year. Activision CFO Thomas Tippl also hinted that the action/RPG game will be on shelves in 2012 at the very latest. As it stands now, Diablo 3 is officially coming to the PC and Mac platforms, but a recent job listing now indicates that a console version may be in the works as well.