Blizzard has never made any official statemetns about D3, Diablo online, or any other possible future games in the series.
legitimate news sources about d3 info.
July 13, 2007
Third project underway. Not Starcraft Ghost. WoW and SC2 and _______.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14691Talking to Gamasutra, Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard revealed that the company has a third team hard at work on a new title, separate from World of Warcraft and StarCraft II.
The comment came amid discussion of the company's current workforce. "Our global headcount is 2,700," said Pearce, "And most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing."
When pressed for details regarding the new project, Pearce was cagey. "Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome."
August 5, 2007
"Diablo ... well, it is obviously a very important franchise to us. And I would say, that as with Starcraft and Warcraft, we will certainly get back to it at some point. We are focusing currently on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and content associated with World of Warcraft and Starcraft II. We do have some other things in development, and we are not ready to talking about it yet, but what I can say is that we do love that franchise. And its something that we will get to revisit at some point." -- Paul Sams, Blizzard VP of Business Operations
October 26, 2006
BlizzPlanet [1] with Richard Knaak, author of some of the Diablo novels.
Question: How much of the book is creation of yours, and how involved is Chris Metzen behind the canon storyline of Diablo: The Sin War Trilogy? Do you think the ramifications of this book impact in the storyline of Diablo 3 the game?
Knaak: This is a pure collaboration between myself and Chris Metzen/Blizzard. All that is written is passed by him and the others there. This will be canon and has adjusted earlier info. The ramifications here will be used for any future project ... and I ain't writing for a dead game. :)
Question: So ... Diablo 3?
Knaak: I am not writing for a dead world ... but a world with dead. 'nuff said!
February 2, 2006
Gamespot picks up news about all the Diablo II team positions in new jobs on the bliz site.http://www.gamespot.com/news/6143594.html
December 1, 2005
Site visitor Parke popped a note over to say that Hyboreal Games have changed the wording of Michio Okamura biography on the official site to read "unannounced project" instead of "unannounced sequel". Another indication that Diablo III was/is in the works and Hyboreal thought it best to change the text? The plot thickens.
Update: Lanth mailed in to point out this tidbit from Stefan Scandizzo's bio on the Castaway Games website:
He continued his level designing in Diablo II’s expansion: Lord of Destruction. In 2000, Stefan started producing 3D monsters for the character team for an unannounced upcoming sequel.
Stefan worked on D2 and D2X, before leaving Bliz North back in 2003.
October 28, 2005
Wild and wow expansion rumors from an alleged former bliz employee. the wow stuff turned out to be quite accurate, but the d3 is still classified entirely as rumor. Now 2.5 year old rumor.
Blizzard will also use the BlizzCon event to introduce Diablo 3 to gamers and if the excitement of Blizzard employees is anything to go by, the game will be a big deal. According to a message sent to WoW Guru by former Blizzard employee Chris Hartgraves, Diablo 3 takes place in heaven. Hell is trying to take it over and it is AWESOME looking ... Imagine the brightness of heaven being taken over by the darkness of hell ... Imagine WoW but in a Diablo world in amount of size and playability ... Also, guild housing is available in this game for those of you who know about it. They should have a gameplay demo to show at BlizzCon.
August 1, 2005
Blizzard North studios shut down and blizzard operations centralized in Irvine. Most of the long time Bliz North employees have already quit; most of the rest do now, many joining Flagship Studios, Castaway Studios, or other companies.
"We're looking forward to having our PC development teams together in Irvine," stated Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. "In addition to improving our efficiency as a company, the relocation also represents an opportunity for all of our teams to have regular, direct input on each other's projects." Blizzard does not believe that these changes will cause significant delays on any of its projects in development. The company released its subscription-based massively multi-player online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, at the end of 2004 and is continuing work on StarCraft: Ghost, its upcoming tactical-action console game set in the award-winning StarCraft universe. Plans for future products will be revealed at a later date.
April 27, 2005
d3 music recording session?http://www.diabloii.net/newsupdates/archive/arc9.php
We received an email today from a Diablo fan and classical musician in the Czech Republic.
I am musician in Czech Republic. I play not with one orchestra but with many depending on work. I have recently been to Bratislava in Slovak Republic for recording sessions with local Radio Symphony Orchestra, where we just recorded music for Diablo 3.
For some historical perspective, check the Battle.net page with the D2X:LoD bonus mp3s. Scroll down a bit and you can read news and see pictures from Blizzard's recording session for the D2X music, held in Bratislava, Slovakia, with the Slovak Radio Philharmonic. Those sessions were carried out in early 2001, before the game's release that June, so perhaps D3 is further along than we've been assuming? Either that or they're recording the music earlier in the game's production cycle than they did for D2X.
Update: More from the musician:
I did not find the people from Blizzard in the studio, but composer (Ulman?) was there and conductor was named Kirk Trevor, I think he is from England but he conducts in Bratislava much and also in some other cities in Czech Republic like Zlin.
The music is again, like in Diablo 2 expansion, very much based on Wagner. In Diablo 2 expansion there are many plases in Act 5 that take directly from Wagners opera "Tristan and Isolde". This time for Diablo 3 there was music similar to Wagner operas "Lohengrin" and also "Siegfried" from Ring cycle. But this is not so bad that he takes from these things, almost all movie composers borow Wagner music, like Williams for Star Wars and others like Nino Rota who made music for Fellini's films.
So now when Diablo 3 is finished I must buy, maybe I will hear all my mistakes (I play percusion instruments).
Unannounced Projects
While Sams wasn't ready to spill the beans just yet, he did say Blizzard "will have a major product announcement in 2007," and that Blizzard was currently working on at least three other unannounced titles at the moment." -- IGN, 8-28-06
Domain Names and Trademarks
Blizzard Entertainment owns numerous domain names for future Diablo products. www.diablo3.eu www.diablo3.es Diablo4.fr
May 28, 2004 diablo2.fr, diablo3.fr. vivendi owned.
Diablo II: Salvation was a title Blizzard registered years ago, apparently to use for a potential Diablo movie. I remembered hearing the name long ago, and a search turned it up in our news archives, way back on 27, 2001. Since they haven't done anything with it yet, I think we can chalk it up to just another trademark bought and not used. This happens all the time in business, which is why we aren't getting too excited about that "The Burning Crusade" trademark.
People
July 2003: Big 4 leave Bliz North, many others follow them. Flagship Studios announced shortly afterwards.
July 11, 2003: Blizzard names Rick Seis new head of Bliz north.
REDWOOD CITY, CA – September 6, 2005 - Castaway Entertainment is proud to announce that former Blizzard North studio lead Rick Seis has accepted the position of Technical Director and lead programmer for their current unannounced project.