September 24, 2008 - The announcement of the impending release of Diablo III marks the long-awaited return of a classic franchise. For those of you unfamiliar with the Diablo series, it almost single-handedly gave rise to the dungeon crawl/action RPG genre.

The game's combination of interesting, varied, and challenging enemies, random dungeons, gory visuals, unique heroes, loads of loot, a solid set of multiplayer features (almost unheard of at the time), and an interesting, overarching storyline made the Diablo games utterly addictive. In fact, I'm only mildly ashamed to admit that a good portion of my college career was spent around Tristram in Diablo and cooperatively over Battle.net in Diablo II. Nevertheless, they weren't perfect. Constant inventory management and a repetitive combat mechanic eventually made the games tiresome. Thankfully, Blizzard has had more than seven years to iron out the wrinkles and do more than just rehash a tired system and ailing genre.

Those of you pale-faced warriors who slogged through level upon level and quest upon quest in Diablo and Diablo II (and, of course, the Lord of Destruction expansion) don't need a story explanation. However, the rest of you missed out on a rather interesting world. The events in Diablo III occur some twenty years after those of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Mephisto, Bhaal, and Diablo, the Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction, also known as the Three Prime Evils were defeated by the heroes of the previous games with the help of the sage advice of Deckard Cain and the intervention of the Archangel Tyrael. However, Tyrael ended up destroying the Worldstone, which served as a shield for the mortals of Sanctuary from the immense power of both Heaven and the Hells. The destruction of this great artifact has left the people vulnerable to the resurgence of evil and the machinations of the Prime Evils.

To make matters worse, there are precious few mortals remaining that remember the absolute evil and terror that was wrought upon the lands by Diablo and his brothers. Those who do linger are considered old, insane doomsayers. As such, most consider the stories of Deckard Cain and the heroes of old to be little more than myth, legend, and exaggerated ramblings of demented minds. Needless to say, the return of evil to the world of Sanctuary will be swift, surprising, and terrible.

To help tell the more expansive story of Diablo 3, dialogue and voice acting will be increased and greatly improved. In the original games, dialogues played out much more like monologues. Players would advance the games' story through quests and errands and glean a bit more information by having NPCs talk at them rather than with them. This time around, PCs and NPCs will interact with each other through give and take conversations. This will allow for a PC's personality to be fleshed out much more readily. By greatly expanding the amount of voice acting devoted to them, players will learn all about their character's race, class, civilization, and individual motivations.

In addition to the greatly expanded sound features, the visuals have received a major overhaul. Unfortunately, the more vibrant art style has been a bone of contention for a very vocal minority that feels the mood of the Diablo series will not be appropriately portrayed. Nevertheless, the developers at Blizzard assure us that the visual direction of Diablo III is in fact true to the original. The devs even went so far as to point out that the first two art styles they began working with were thrown out because the extremely dark and brooding atmosphere they were creating was more a figment of their memories rather than what the previous games actually portrayed. Consequently, the folks at Blizzard, despite internet petitions from a few angry fans, have decided to go with a world full of vibrant colors that juxtapose nicely with the ominous environments. Blizzard promises that this art style both reinforces and refreshes the original look, while still maintaining the horror and terror of its predecessors.

Moreover, Blizzard has created an original, proprietary 3D and physics engine for Diablo III. Players can now hack through enemies and watch the parts fly, spurting with blood and detritus, while transitioning from move to move with fluid animation. Plus, environments are now largely destructible, which means players will be able to use their surroundings to slaughter the horde of enemies that await them.

Diablo III will still take advantage of the withdrawn, isometric camera established in the other games, in order to give players a better sense of scale and epic feel. In other words, players will have no control over the camera. Fortunately, the previous games never suffered from camera issues. As such, leaving the camera work in the hands of the CPU shouldn't be a problem.