Diablo III is a dark fantasy/horror-themed action role-playing game, with elements of the hack and slash and "dungeon roaming" genres, currently in development as the third installment of Blizzard's Diablo franchise. It was announced on June 28, 2008, at the 2008 Blizzard Convention.

Diablo III is being developed as the definitive action role-playing game, and a true continuation of the Diablo series. Players will create a hero from one of five distinct classes, such as barbarian, witch doctor, or wizard, each equipped with an array of spells and abilities. As these heroes adventure through rich and varied settings, unraveling an epic storyline and engaging in combat with hordes of monsters and challenging bosses, they�ll grow in experience and ability and acquire items of incredible power.

The game takes place on Sanctuary, a world of dark fantasy. Unbeknownst to most of its inhabitants, Sanctuary was saved some twenty years ago from the demonic forces of the underworld by a few brave and powerful heroes. Most of those warriors who directly faced the armies of the Burning Hells -- and were fortunate enough to survive -- went mad from their experiences. And most of the others have buried their haunted memories and pushed the horrors from their thoughts.

In Diablo III, players will return to Sanctuary to confront evil in its many forms once again. Diablo III will be a fitting sequel to Diablo II, with the easy interface, fast-paced action, and visceral gameplay that Diablo players have come to expect and enjoy. It will also include many new features that will take the Diablo action-RPG experience to the next level. Features: Five powerful character classes to choose from, including the barbarian, witch doctor, and wizard Brand-new 3D graphics engine enhanced with spectacular visual effects and Havok physics Numerous indoor and outdoor areas detailing new regions in the world of Sanctuary Interactive environments with dangerous traps and obstacles, and destructible elements Randomly generated worlds bolstered by scripted events for endless and dynamic gameplay Vast assortment of fiendish monsters, with unique attack patterns and behaviors New quest system and character-customization options for the ultimate action-RPG experience Multiplayer functionality over Battle.net with support for cooperative and competitive play

Diablo III General:

Diablo III's inventory and HUD will retain a feel similar to that found in earlier games in the series, including a viewpoint reminiscent of the old isometric view. At first there was a new inventory system, but it has recently been reverted back to the original "tetris inventory", as found in Diablo 2. The inventory is divided into two tabs, one for items that players find, and others for quest items that players will find throughout the game. Diablo III is similar in style to its predecessor, Diablo II. The proprietary engine will incorporate Havok physics and feature destructible environments with an in-game damage effect. The developers are aiming to make the game run on a wide range of systems, and have stated that DirectX 10 will not be required. Diablo III will use a custom 3D game engine in order to present an overhead view to the player, in a somewhat similar way to the isometric view used in previous games in the series. Enemies will utilize the 3D environment as well, in ways such as crawling up the side of a wall from the depths into the combat area. Every creature model will have around 35 unique death animations.

As in Diablo II, multiplayer games will be possible using Blizzard's Battle.net service, with many of the new features developed for StarCraft II also available in Diablo III. Players will be able to drop in and out of sessions of co-operative play with others.

An enhanced quest system, a random level generator, and a random encounter generator are slated for use in order to ensure the game provides different experiences when replayed. Overall, the game will include both static and randomly generated levels. Additionally, there will be class-specific quests to go along with the main storyline quests. Blizzard originally planned to have in-game cutscenes, but decided these would divert from the gameplay and decided against them. Two new armor pieces will be available: shoulder plates and leggings.

Unlike previous iterations, gold can be picked up merely by touching it, rather than having to manually pick it up. Sidekicks, unlike Diablo II, are now distinct NPCs who join the player, rather than randomly-generated and endlessly replaceable hires. One of the new features intended to speed gameplay is that health orbs drop from enemies, replacing the need to have a potion bar, which itself is replaced by a skill bar that allows a player to assign quick bar buttons to skills and spells; previously, players could only assign two skills (one for each mouse button) and had to swap skills with the function keys. Players can still assign specific attacks to mouse buttons.

Skill Runes, another new feature, are skill-modifying items that are randomly dropped by monsters and used across all classes. Similar to runes in Diablo II but instead of changing equippable items, they can be attached to skills as though they are items, often completely changing the gameplay of each skill.[14] They also have the ability to make one particular spell in each class more powerful, and give the player options as to how the rune will enhance a particular spell. For example, investing Skill Runes on the Wizard's "Lightning" can allow the players to make the lightning jump towards additional enemies, or, alternatively, adding the runes with explosion effect blows the enemy up and causes damage to the surrounding area.

As of August 2010, four of the five classes have been unveiled: the Barbarian, the Witch Doctor, the Wizard, and the Monk. The Barbarian is the only class that Blizzard is planning to bring back from Diablo II for the initial release. Blizzard has also stated that the Monk is not related in any way to the Monk class from the Sierra Entertainment made Diablo: Hellfire expansion. The Archivist was presented on April 1, 2009 following Blizzard's April Fool's Day joke tradition.

In the previous two games, each class had a fixed gender, but in Diablo III, players may choose the sex they would like to play. Although Blizzard initially revealed only one sex per class, the alternate sex is being revealed slowly in the lead-up to the game's release. Currently, all four announced classes have had both their male and female form revealed: the female Monk, female Barbarian, and male Wizard. The female Witch Doctor was originally seen in the gameplay tutorial on the Diablo III website, and has also been formally announced after some time, and the fifth class has yet to be revealed.

Current Classes Include:

Russell Brower composed the music for Diablo III. When composing for the orchestra, he tried to respect the Wagnerian style from Lord of Destruction expansion of the second game in the series. The Overture is considered the main theme of the game and it has been performed by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra. A similar composition was used on the Cinematic Teaser Trailer of the game. The Tristram theme from the first Diablo videogame, also used in the second game, is present in Diablo III with few changes.

Opening theme:



World Map Soundtrack:



Overture soundtrack:



Premeire announcement at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational: