Blizzard has officially announced the new Diablo III game!
The moment was flooded with anticipation as thousands packed the room to hear Mike Morhaime make his opening speech at the 2008 Blizzard Invitational in Paris, France this morning. After briefly speaking about the 2007 events in Korea, introducing the pro-players who would be participating in the events and some very uncomfortable moments from the painfully horrid hosts, it was finally time to announce the next game Blizzard will be debuting.
The lights on the stage dimmed ….
One red light lit a guitar player to the left of the stage ….
and then a familiar piece of music - to those who lived in the Diablo universe of the past.
The demon …. is back!
The lead designer of Diablo III took the stage and walked us through a little of the gameplay. Introduced in this footage, was a new playable class - the Witch Doctor - as well as the new incarnation of our favorite Barbarian.
We were shown new ways of destroying enemies such as crashing enormous walls down on them and calling up a wall of zombies to kill/block their paths.
Health orbs are also added as a drop so that you no longer have to rely on potions.
The graphics are unbelievable! Water looks realistic. Colors are bright and vibrant and, of course, the spell effects are amazing.
Deckard Cain, a familiar face, was brought back for the 3rd installment of Diablo and the audience roared when the line “Stay a while and …” was cut off by the barbarian. Finally … Cain ended the statement with “nobody ever listens”. This brought the crowd to cheers.
Feel free to post your questions for the designers here and when I return, tomorrow, I will do my best to get them answered for you!!
I will be posting photos from this event later tonight. As for now, I’m back to the show to see what other treats Blizzard has in store!
xoxo,
Aktrez
June 28th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Quite a shocking news, hehe
I’ve only seen the last piece of the gameplay demonstration, and has a neat look (though I’m not a Diablo fan myself!).
The speech about the WoW classes in WOTL (just finished) has been pretty cool and exciting
And for Diablo fans (don’t want to be too off-topic here), developers will talk about it in a few minutes! (those of you online now can watch it live, like I’m doing; check out the WWI08 website)
Aktrez, thanks for the info. Though I missed the first part I’ve enjoyed reading about it
Wish I were there!
June 28th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I saw some screenshots on my little WoW add-on news thingie, looks pretty sweet!
June 28th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
(droooooool)
June 28th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Finally glad to hear the rumors die and it be confirmed… I mean, Diablo 2 and Civ IV are the ONLY games I constantly resort to when I’m bored to tears- which is often currently!
I will, sadly, have to have a new computer to run Diablo 3 under all circumstances, but I’ll manage that by the time it’s out. Somehow, someway.
Maybe I’ll sell my soul to the Diablo.
(See what I did there? =P)
June 28th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Great reporting Aktrez! I can’t wait for this game!
June 28th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Whoa, looks awesome!
June 30th, 2008 at 1:37 am
OooooO! I am sooo excited!! *sqeals*!
I’m very happy they decided to keep D3 as a RPG instead of an MMO, although they will be having online game play for parties and such. But over all I think a lot of people are much happier this way. But of course I would have played it as an MMO xD
Love the graphics and the mature rating. Multi-levels are going to be a pain but is sooo awesome! And I love the new added health orbs and interface!
Becky Im soo jealous you got to see it! My plans got canceled to go to WWI
But hopefully I’ll be able to meet any of the GEN members that will be going to BlizzCon 08 in CA!
Thanks again hun for the wonderful post! Hope you had lots of fun in Paris!!
<3 Lilith
June 30th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
It is about time! I remember playing this game with my brothers growing up. It will be great to do that again.