My guess is that it will arrive 3rd or 4th quarter of 2011.
The news surrounding this highly anticipated sequel has been quite shrouded lately. Anyone who frequents the Battle.net forums knows that there’s been an information drought for Diablo 3 the past few months. Bashiok has been good about tossing the occasional bone out to the rabid fans, but all that’s done is to let people know that at least someone is paying attention, so as to not create a mutinous uproar.
BlizzCon 2010 will no doubt provide the next wave of massive Diablo 3 information updates. I’m sure there will be some little tidbits announced along the way, but don’t expect anything of importance until October. For example, things like the fifth and final playable class will not be revealed until Blizzcon 2010. My money’s on the Rogue making a return. 😉
Update: 10/22/10 – Looks like I called that one wrong… the Rogue will not be returning for Diablo 3. However… I was right about one thing… it’s a ranged class. Blizzard introduced a new doozie of a class… The Demon Hunter. Many of you may already be familiar with the class’ description, but if not, click here to find out more. I was pretty confident that a Barbarian would be the first character I’d level, but now I’m not so sure. Dual wielding crossbow pistols and exploding bolas..?! Sign me up! 😀
OK, now as far as Diablo 3’s release date… Blizzard had announced last year that they had two major releases slated for a 2010 release. Now that we’re here, we know what those are… Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Obviously, those simple facts rule out any chance of Diablo 3 being released this year.
I highly doubt that Diablo 3 will hit store shelves any earlier than summer 2011. If I had to put money on it, I’d bank on a release date that comes just before the holidays. However, being that the Diablo games have been traditionally released during the summer, and given the fact that they seem pretty far along the development path at this point, I wouldn’t rule out a July-August 2011 release.
A 2012 release date for Diablo 3 is also quite likely, but I’m still going with Q4 2011. Why..? Being that the only major undisclosed piece of the puzzle is the fifth and final class (which they started conceptualizing straight away upon development), I highly doubt there is enough finish work and testing to delay the release another two years.
Bottom line… I expect Diablo 3 to be released about one year after Cataclysm. Will it be a WoW killer..? I doubt it. They’re two totally different games. Blizzard may lose a few WoW subscription renewals here and there, but I suspect players will be splitting time between both RPGs by then. I know I will.
Of course, it’ll probably be like a 90/10 split in favor of Diablo 3. 😉
Hei one thing that I can’t understand, is if the game is set to be realeased in 2011 Q4, then how can it be that you can Pre-Order D3 now ?????
if there will be a 2011 blizzcon i think it will be right after D3 comes out and blizzcon is usually in august and october the next year, 2010 was in october so 2011 should be in august. so my guess D3 will come out in july or august
This is really ridiculous. We are waiting for the game a decade now. I don’t understand what are they doing? If the game does not satisfy our needs then i think customers will be very sad.
Can’t wait till it comes out .
EXPECTING A LOT FROM IT , I hope we will not be fooled.
its already 10 years and sometimes diablo2 LoD hits 500k players online cant they see it?
after 10 years game is still can be bought in stores.
by the way I Agree and support Astanapenes words.
We will be very SAD if the game won’t satisfy our needs.
good luck for everybody and lets hope we will see the real sequel of Diablo 2 🙂
DIABLO 3 INCOMING =D (L)
I would quit wow in a heartbeat for diablo 3 wow has become boring……Super long YAWN!!!
I could never stand WoW and its kiddie graphics.
Starcraft II wasn’t ground breaking.
I bought neither of those games.
Bring the Diablo III. If not this year, I’ll probably lose interest (not complaining, just being realistic). I’ve since moved on to other things besides gaming.
If you look at http://www.blizzcon.com you can see that Blizzard put the Diablo graphic stuff centered and most noticeable. There is no doubt that Diablo III will be released at BlizzCon 2011.