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Diablo 3 release dates are often given/guessed at by media sources and especially by software merchants. These dates have no authority and exist solely to spur interest/pre-sales.
* [http://diablo.incgamers.com/categories/category/release-date/ News items related to Diablo 3's] release date. More than two dozen by mid-2010, since this is an evergreen rumor.
* [http://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/search.php?keywords=release-date Screenshot gallery of] (incorrect) estimated release dates.
Estimates of a percentage 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 percentage completed.
Almost since the game was announced in June 2008 , the developers have said that they were well into content production.[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/diablo-iii-heavily-into-development/] (Meaning that the engine and basic game functions were all locked down and working properly.) Content though, especially in Blizzard titles, is such a huge area of work that experienced Blizzard-watchers expected the content production and balancing would take years. And with the earliest feasible release date coming in mid-2011, they'll have had at least 3 years of intensive content development by that point. ==Diablo III Beta Test=== Blizzard has regularly referred to their plans for a [[Diablo 3 Beta]] test. Though such a test is not yet confirmed, Blizzard has held one for every other game they've released over the past decade, and there's no reason to think Diablo III would be the exception. Such a test would likely include only the opening portion of the game, enough to get testers playing and testing out different hardware configurations for Blizzard, as well as giving feedback on the difficulty curve, game controls, instructional menus, and many other early game aspects the developers want to be sure they have perfectly designed to hook new players the first time they pick up a mouse. Blizzard beta tests generally last 4-6 months, depending on the complexity of the game. Starcraft 2's beta began in late February 2010, and ran almost until the game was released, on July 27th. See the [[Diablo 3 Beta]] test page for more details, including how to get your spot in Diablo III's.
* Diablo III Announced at the WWI in Paris : 28th of June 2008
With this history in mind, many fans are hoping for a late June, 2011 release.
===Guess the Release Date===
If you're the betting type, there's a well-advanced release date prediction pool [http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?t=700147 you can join in here].
==Diablo III Demo==
Blizzard has not said anything specifically about the upcoming demo of Diablo III, but when talking about StarCraft II, they said they had plans for a demo, and that they "use to do that after release". Most likely, we can expect a trial version of Diablo III ''after release''.
==Diablo III Expansion Packs===
Blizzard has confirmed their intention to create multiple [[expansion pack]]s for Diablo III. These are expected to be released about every 18 months, following in the pattern established by World of Warcraft and Starcraft II.
File:Release-date-bnet.png|Fan made fake screen of a digital download page on Battle.net. June 28, 2012 date.
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==Archive==
Past date information, now rendered obsolete by the passage of time.
===Not 2010===
In Activision/Blizzard financial reports, two games are reported as being released this year: [[Starcraft II]] and [[World of Warcraft: Cataclysm]]. [[Diablo III]] was never part of Blizzard's release schedule for 2010.
===Starcraft II First===
There were some rumors in 2008[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/d3-release-date-rumors/] that Diablo 3 was further along in the development cycle than Starcraft 2. Blizzard immediately denied that, they always said Starcraft 2 would be released first, and it was, on July 27, 2010. With Diablo 3 still nowhere near beta testing at that point, that's as thorough a rumor debunking as you're ever going to see.
[[Category:Basics]]
[[Category:Diablo III]]
[[category:release date]]
