Blizzard: Diablo III "is not going to be out next year"

Posted Nov 21st 2009 4:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: RPG, Diablo III

Blizzard is currently targeting the release of StarCraft II for the first half of 2010 and their next World of Warcraft expansion pack, Cataclysm, is due out sometime in 2010 as well. But what about Diablo III? Blizzard first announced the action-RPG sequel nearly 18 months ago but has yet to give any hint on a ship date for that highly anticipated game.

The newly launched Techland web site (run by Time magazine) has posted up some quotes from Blizzard exec Rob Pardo on that subject. He admits that Diablo III " . . . is not going to be out next year." So why announce a game that is going to take so long to develop? He also admits. "We always announce all of our games too early. We realize that and go, 'You know what? Next time we're not going to do that.' And then we always fail at that." However he says Blizzard would rather be late in releasing a game like Diablo III than releasing a game on time that just doesn't work. In fact going forward Pardo says their attitude when revealing a new title is, "Here's the game we're working on, we're going to start talking about it and who knows when it ships."

Gallery: Diablo III Screenshots

Tags: blizzard, blizzard-entertainment, diablo-3, diablo-iii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

*Surprises No one*Posted at 4:59PM on Nov 21st 2009 by Cheesus Crust

I'm sure they are just taking their time to finalize the code base for the consoles, after all you can't expect Activision to be waiting on hand everytime Blizzard needs it.

And its never to early to start the hype train.Posted at 7:39PM on Nov 21st 2009 by Unknown

meh, dont like his strategy, he just seems like the kid that lost and went home with his football. His best bet is to not bring it up anyomre unless theres a beta, otherwise stfu and stfd.Posted at 1:55AM on Nov 22nd 2009 by NiggerD

Let me know when they advance the game engine 2 or 3 generations, Dx9 is over and definitely will be by the time this game release's. Fooking Mooley'sPosted at 2:06AM on Nov 22nd 2009 by Dopeman

This means it will have taken over 10 years from Diablo 2 to 3... This is ridiculous. Are the developers working part-time? Lack of developers? Or are they purposefully waiting out on each game release to monetize as much as they can?

All I can say is, while Blizzard makes amazing games, I'm going to stop paying attention to anything they say and start investing my time into game companies that can release sequels within a reasonable time frame.Posted at 5:04PM on Nov 22nd 2009 by Beau

I have been waiting, waning and hoping the release of Diablo will be sooner. Since 2009 I kept my fingers crossed but with this
report I must say I am very disappointed.. :( I love the game so much - Oh please blizzard, I hope you don't make the people
wait so much. The last thing on earth you would want to happen is to let the hopes of your fans down, ayt?

How long should we wait details: http://bit.ly/Diablo-not-on-2010-how-long-will-we-waitPosted at 8:17AM on Nov 23rd 2009 by pinoytutorial

I must admit a growing impatience with Blizzard's release of D3. I've never been much of a computer or console gamer, but I am positively ADDICTED to the Diablo franchise because it offers everything I desire in a game: a dark fantasy/action-adventure story with a relatively simple control system (because frankly I lack whatever genes it takes to handle more complex game controls). AND I NEED MY FIX. That said, if D3 is as much of an improvement over D2 as D2 was over the original, I won't mind much having waited a decade for the chance to play it. Better a well-thought-out sequel than a quick buck in the bank.Posted at 9:42PM on Nov 23rd 2009 by Raelyn

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