Thursday 15 June 2006
Recent reports that World of Warcraft developer Blizzard will be turning all of its franchises into massively multiplayer online games have been put down to a misunderstanding by the company.

The initial revelation was based on an alleged comment made by Vivendi Universal Games, Blizzard's owner, during a presentation given to Wall Street. If true it would, of course, make for a truly juicy snippet of news, as it would mean that the much-loved Starcraft and Diablo series would be confirmed for return in MMO guise.

However, Blizzard has spoken out to counter the claim. "We do not currently have any MMO development plans beyond the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft and, furthermore, we don't have any intentions to focus on only one genre or platform with our future games," it confirmed in an online interview. "We believe that the rumour circulating about this subject is based on a misinterpretation of information provided to industry analysts."

Did you get your hopes up, only to have them smashed? Here's a little something for you: we've heard from a reliable source that Diablo III is indeed in the works, and is centred on a battle between heaven and hell, with the massive conflict taking place where the two realms meet. It's not clear if it'll be an MMOG, but it does sound like the perfect setup. We'll see...