Something we only picked up on during our second playthrough was just how fantastic monster deaths look. There are no stock animations here – each monster dies according to the way you dispatched it. Drench it in acid, and they’ll melt to the floor; butcher them with the Barbarian’s broadsword and their torso will likely still follow you around the room. We’ve always loved Diablo’s unflinching attitude to its subject matter: namely, twisted hellspawn who want nothing more than to turn you into a gore sandwich. As such, Diablo III features gobs of viscera and demonic goo – made all the more, well, delicious when rendered on such a small scale. The enemies themselves are a varied lot. Some puke maggot-flecked bile at you, while others are bloated pus-bombs that explode in a shower of lampreys when killed. It’s little touches like this that indicate the depth of care Blizzard are putting into Diablo III.

Diablo III will ship with five classes in total and you’ll be able to choose the gender of each. Like Diablo II, each will have three skill trees to progress down, such as the Wizard’s Storm, Arcane and Conjuration skill sets – meaning if you opt for multiplayer, no two characters will appear the same. But these aren’t your average RPG avatars. No, these boys and girls each have a set of motives as to why they’re risking their neck to save an undeserving world, some of them not-altogether altruistic, with class-specific quest lines that will detail these motives.

Diablo has always been about user-friendliness. Hence, you’re just using the left and right mouse button, plus a smattering of keyboard commands. Blizzard’s philosophy, and it’s one that’s led to the massive success of World of Warcraft, is that an RPG can feature deep customization without being brain-searingly complex. WoW players will immediately feel at home here. Most importantly, the game looks fantastic – key when there’s so much happening on screen at once.

There’s still no word from Blizzard on even a tentative release date, except for them to say that Diablo III will be released after Starcraft 2 (and whether that’s after the newly announced two expansions, we can’t say). 2009 is going to be one hell of a year judging by the look of this.

Nov 25, 2008