Diablo III to Arrive in Early 2012 - “Soon” Was Too Soon

Mike Morhaime president and a co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment has announced, Blizzard's new targeted goal is to release Diablo 3 for early 2012. Unfortunately this is not a set release date, but this gives all Diablo fans anticipating the game a good idea of when Diablo 3 will arrive.

Game Information

Diablo III is a action role-playing game(ARPG) with horror/fantasy styled environments. Known for its elements of the hack and slash and "dungeon roaming" genres, Diablo 3 is currently in development as the third installment of Blizzard's Diablo franchise. The original artistic style differed from that shown at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational 2008 demonstration, and has undergone three revisions before reaching the standards felt necessary by the team around Diablo III.

Diablo III was announced freshly to the public June 28, 2008, at Blizzard's World Wide Invitational in Paris, France. Although there is no set date of release, Blizzard had a convention on October 8, 2010 known as BlizzCon in which design director Jay Wilson said a release would be scheduled about 6 months from beta testing. During BlizzCon many were excited when the 5th and final class was released, (Demon Hunter). Blizzard likes to put plenty of time and dedication into their franchises to help strenghten their playability and create an original edge to a series we all enjoy.

Game Changes

Many great features from Diablo 2, like gems and runes appear to be in place for the third installation. We can expect several new additions that the design team feels will keep this game fresh and interesting. In late August Blizzard announced the artisan system, players can now create or craft items and armor more efficiently and easily than in the previous version. Also created is a new salvaging system in which you can turn items you find into raw materials that you can store and later use for crafting (this was also created to cut down on trip/time spent in town once your inventory fills up). The team had tried to keep Town Portals in the game but found obvious flaws that led them to do away with the concept. Now they have been creating more frequent waypoints which will add for a more difficult and challenging game.

Character Classes

These are the final five classes to choose from, all of which are unique and powerful in various ways to offer a mixture to those who have a favorite play style or class.

Wizard - Harnessing arcane and elemental magic to do his/her bidding via a devastating array of offensive spells. The Wizard is quite similar to that of the Sorceress from Diablo 2.

Witch Doctor - This class is a spellcaster to that similar of the Necromancer from Diablo II. Dealing in nature magic, elemental magic, necromancy and alchemy.

Demon Hunter - The Demon Hunter was the 5th and final class to be announced. This class is a ranged crossbow class many were expecting to replace the amazon from the previous game.

Barbarian - The Barbarian is a class you will be all to familure with if you have experience Diablo from it previous games. Being a one of the more well known melee oriented classes, the Barb uses great physical abilities that uses fury in place of mana.

Monk - The Monk has been classified as a hybrid as he can perform both melee and caster type skills, being presented as having a martial arts and kung fu based theme to most of his attacks.