Diablo III Announced

Well, it’s been seven years coming. Blizzard Entertainment is finally ready once again to unleash upon us the hell known as Diablo. A cinematic and gameplay footage is available on Blizzard’s European website.

For the past few days, as many sites have covered,  Blizzard had left a mysterious teaser splash up on their sites leaving many to speculate what they would be announcing next. Some speculated it would be in regards to Starcraft II while others believed it may have had something to do with World of Warcraft. We now know it was neither. Last night, in Paris, France, the mystery known as Diablo III was finally unveiled to the world. During the event, Blizzard - led by lead designer Jay Wilson - showed off developmental in-game footage. The same old feel still remains.

You will obviously notice the graphical update though the basic premise still remains: You will still dungeon crawl across a multitude of random stages just like in Diablo and Diablo II (Lord of Destruction). Old friends will join us including Deckard Cain (”Stay awhile and listen!”). Also, we will be met with more items, more quest, and new environments to explore. In terms of classes, reportedly, there are 5. Players will be able to choose between Male and Female as well. During the demo, we saw the familar, yet redone, Barbarian as well as a new class, the Witch Doctor. The Witch Doctor (Seemingly something of a cross of the Druid and Necromancer) controls pets and is also a master of disease and fire. Jay Wilson also took the time to inform us that like Starcraft II, Diablo III will retain the familiar Battle.net scheme. “[the game is ] primarily cooperative”, he stated. In the mean time, while we all now wait for more information and a gold date, enjoy the plethora of screenshots below.