Diablo 3 Announced!

So, I stayed up a bit late tonight playing video games, watching movies and television. Around 3 AM I was browsing online when I noticed that the Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational starts live broadcasting online at 3:45 AM (it's in Paris). This week there's been hype around some big announcement Blizzard is supposed to make at the event. I figured that if there's a big announcement it will likely come in the beginning, so I decided to stay up a bit longer and listen in.

4:00 am MST
Mike Morheim - President of Blizzard Entertainment
Opened up with a generic 'thank you for making this a great event' speech. Reminded us that last year they announced Starcraft 2 at the Worldwide Invitational. Proceeded to show us a cheesy video of last year's highlights in South Korea with reggae music, of all things, as the background soundtrack. With a little dramatic prelude, he then announced that Blizzard's newest game is, as many speculated, Diablo 3.



4:15 am MST
Diablo 3 Trailer shown.

4:30 am MST
Jay Wilson - Lead Designer on Diablo 3
Narrated Diablo 3 demo
Characters still say the cheesy lines when entering an area (Barbarian "The sun has never shown here"). The graphics look much improved. The general aerial view is maintained as it was in Diablo 2. Some previous characters from Diablo 2 show up in Diablo 3 (guess who). At least this time around your character is smart enough to tell him to just shut up.

Cain: "Stay awhile and ..." (interrupted)
You: "It is time for shedding our enemies blood, not time for idle talk."
Cain: "Oh, whatever"

During the demo he goes through different classes. One of the new ones is the witch doctor. One new skill (similar to fire wall or bone wall)...zombie wall. Also, classes can be either male or female.


Overall, it was a great presentation. The demo was awesome. This is probably the only game that will pull me away from console gaming for any significant period of time (only a few months or so). Sadly, no announcement was made regarding a release date. Considering that they had a working demo, I wouldn't be surprised if it was later this year.