Diablo 3 Release Rumor Fraud

Over this past weekend, the StarCraft 2 community has been buzzing with rumors about the release date of Diablo III preceding that of StarCraft 2. Well, with a little research, you will soon find out that this rumor is a fraud!

The original report came from Battleforums.org, posted as a front page news item:

We received news today from an anonymous source from inside Blizzard, confirming that development of StarCraft 2 will be largely postponed until Blizzard’s recently announced, and long-awaited Diablo 3 is ready for the market.

Source: Battleforums.com (Diablo 3 Release Date BEFORE StarCraft 2)

While this might sound like a ridiculous claim, it gained huge traction on the internet and many actually believe this rumor to be true. However, there are several points that are counter to these claims. Allow us to debunk this rumor…

For starters, just the amount of official documentation on StarCraft 2 is much greater than Diablo 3. You can see for yourself at the official StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 websites. While StarCraft 2 has a total of three announced races, Diablo 2 only has 2 announced classes. StarCraft 2 has three officially announced environments, Diablo 2 has only two. While this may not be significant for a number of reasons (two different types of games, slow updates with official releases, etc), it still suggests that StarCraft 2 is much further along.

Secondly, Blizzard members have been quoted and regularly tout the fact that StarCraft 2 will launch with Battle.net 2.0. Just recently, Frank Pearce offered that Battle.net will be the coolest updated feature on StarCraft 2. Lead designer of Diablo 3, Jay Wilson, even suggests that the Battle.net team is more focused on the StarCraft 2 aspects:

DS: Are these updates applicable to all Blizzard games, or only StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3?

Wilson: We’re focusing on StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, I don’t know of any plans for the older games. I don’t really have the opportunity to talk to [the Battle.net team] to talk about it. I think currently they’re focused on StarCraft 2. I go to the meetings and give them our criteria, but a lot of the features are similar [to what we'll get in Diablo 3]. StarCraft 2 pushes these features a little further than we do. But I’m certain that when StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 are completed, they might find a way to integrate older games, but I can’t say.

Source: Diii.net (Jay Wilson from Leipzig #6)

With the fact that Battle.net is such a huge part of the gameplay with any Blizzard game, it doesn’t add up to release Diablo 3 before StarCraft 2 - especially when much of the focus right now is on the StarCraft 2 portions of Battle.net.

Bashiok, Diablo 3 community manager, just recently announced the following:

We’re pleased with the development progress on both StarCraft II and Diablo III and are looking forward to sharing more news about both games at next month’s BlizzCon event. Development is proceeding at full speed on both games, but we do not currently have any release dates to announce for either game.

Development on StarCraft II continues to proceed with a full complement of developers. We are pleased with the development progress on the game and are excited to share more news about StarCraft II at next month’s BlizzCon event.

Source: StarCraftWire.net (Debunking Diablo III Release Rumour)

So while no real specifics are stated, it is clear that both games are in full production and that there has been no major shifts in development team size for either game.

So all together, these points add up to make this rumor pretty hard to prove to be true. It has already been rejected by other top StarCraft 2 websites. So, we here at StarCraftZine, are also convinced - its a fraud!