Blizzard Entertainment, now known as Activision Blizzard, have given a sneak peak at the third instalment of their successful Diablo trilogy. We remember when the first Diablo was released way back in 1997 and, back then, it was an instant hit with us. The task was to save the world of Santuary by descending beneath the town of Tristram and finding Diablo, the Lord of Terror who governs hell and its minions, and killing him. Diablo was possibly the first game that we can honestly say had a start and a finish but that we kept playing over and over again. The multiplayer side of Diablo was a lot of fun, and we played that to death too, until players began to exploit holes in the game to make themselves invunlerable or duplicate powerful items at will, effectively ruining everyones fun. We stopped playing at that point, but our interest was recouped when in 2000 Diablo 2 hit the market.

Diablo 2 was more multiplayer oriented than the first, and we were instantly hooked by the expanded cooperative play. It sucked to learn that although we had killed Diablo in the first game, that the demon had in fact won his battle by possessing our body. This of course meant that, at the beginning of Diablo 2, we were an all new warrior that had to kill, well, our original character. Actually we thought it sucked when we first heard of this twist, but in the end it was really pretty cool. We played Diablo 2 to death, but not nearly as much as we had Diablo 1. Soon the same exploits began to frustrate us again with players cheating online, only this time, having been frustrated by the first instalment, our patience was thinner. We lasted less than a year on Diablo 2 and, in fact, our interested faded right about the time it was proclaimed as one of the most popular games in the world. Now the third instalment is on its way and considering Diablo 2 is still being played around the world, this is sure to be a winner. The fact that 11,000 fans found time to watch Blizzards first demonstration of the game might also be a give away.

Diablo 3 will again take place in the fantasy world of Sanctuary, and like Diablo 2, the new game will build upon the original story arc. It is 20 years on since the demons were defeated in Diablo 2 and this time, those that helped battle the demonic onslaught have all gone mad. Familiar character from the first two games, Deckard Cain, investigates the stirrings of new evil when it begins anew...it's time to do the hero thing once again.

There are a couple of changes to Diablo that will be present in the new instalment that has our interest. The first one that caught our attention is the fact that the game will come with a random level generator, meaning that players can play different looking levels each time. That's certainly going to add to longevity. With the development of 3D game engines since the original Diablo, the other aspect that is notable is the vastly improved visual look. Improved 3D that also comes with 3 dimensional climbing of walls and effective lighting create an ominously demonic look. What we're perhaps interest in the most however is the improved gameplay, where the advent of an entirely new interactive system makes it so you can control your player, perform spells and battle with just the click of your mouse. Sounds less complicated and more versatile. There'll be new classes, old classes have been reworked, and we hear battle.net will be enhanced as well.

Finally, Blizzard's experience with patching exploits from the first two games, something they've been doing with Diablo 2 right up until 2008, together with their understanding of online multiplayer games through the success of World of Warcraft and Starcraft, gives us confidence that the early multiplayer versions of Diablo 3 will be exploit free. If not, we're just as confident that they'll stay on top of it to create a whole new Diablo gaming experience worth playing again and again.

We can't wait.

Official website and cinematic trailer: http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/
Release Date: TBA

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