Diablo III release date
As with all Blizzard titles, the release date is, "When it's done." They do not make estimates in advance or give hints, at least not publicly. Any listed dates, such as the ones found on software sales sites, are not official and are gross estimates, or are simply manufactured in order to boost presales.
Contents
Starcraft II First
Blizzard has repeatedly confirmed that StarCraft II will be released before Diablo III. That doesn't tell us anything about a date for Diablo III though, since we don't know how much earlier Starcraft II will hit the stores, nor do we have any idea how close to completion that game is. It looked very well advanced into its development cycle at Blizzcon (October 2008), with virtually all of the units playable. Also, now that Blizzard had decided to split the SC2 single player campaigns into three different games, that should speed things along since nearly the entire team can dedicate themselves to working on the main game, with just the Terran SP missions and the full multiplayer.
The earliest realistic estimates for Starcraft's release date are mid-2009, but there's no way to say anything with any certainty until the beta test begins. A long beta test is expected for Starcraft, as the complicated multiplayer aspects of the game will need to be extensively play tested and balanced.
Diablo III
As for Diablo III, the demo was very playable and seemed well-polished when the public was first given a hands-on opportunity at Blizzcon in October 2008. The D3 Team has repeatedly cautioned overeager speculators though; they say they have a great deal of work yet to do on it, and while what's been shown looks great, they're showing only a tiny fraction of the total game. Production was said to be well into Act 2 as of fall 2008, but with an estimated 4 acts to complete, they are nowhere near finished.
Estimated Progress?
Estimates of a % completed are discouraged by Blizzard development teams, since there's no way to quantify the process in that fashion. They spent years working on the foundation of Diablo III: programming the game engine, trying out numerous different styles of art design, coming up with a plot and character concepts, etc. The hardware and foundational work takes as long or longer than adding in the content, which makes it impossible to estimate the overall % completed.
Guess the Release Date
If you're the betting type, there's a well-advanced release date prediction pool you can join in here.
Rumours
There has been rumours on an off about a release date, and we're listing them as they appear here:
The Dol Rune Conspiracy - 09/09/09
Circulating on forums first in mid-September 2008, and the idea is that the Dol rune holds the truth of the Diablo II release date. Through lots of mathematical formulas and Hex code, the date is supposed to be 2009-09-09.
Besides being logically flawed all the way, it's obviously just a rouse. However, it has continuously been spread on fansites and video game sites up until today (mid January 2009).
- ~ Within Lies The True Secret Of Diablo ~
- Dol Rune Conspiracy - DiabloWiki entry.
Related Information
You can read more about the system requirements, beta testing, price/payment methods and age rating on the Diablo 3 Basics page.
