Holding out for Diablo III

Diablo II is probably my all-time favorite PC game. I, not unlike many others, have been holding out for a sequel to tie up some loose ends and give us some new adventures. Diablo III has been rumored many times, and supposedly, it was even under development at some point:

First, I don’t want to get any of my friends at Blizzard in trouble, so from instead of mentioning “Diablo III” let’s call this theoretical game “Beelzebub 3” and instead of “Blizzard” let’s call them “Snowstorm”….
“Snowstorm” is indeed working on “Beelzebub 3”. Not only are they working on it, but they have been working on this game for no less than the past four years. In fact, “Snowstorm North” nearly completed the game several years ago, but what they developed just “wasn’t fun” and been quietly reworked.

This was reported a little over a year ago. However, more recently, job listings from Blizzard have pointed to the development of a “next-gen MMO,” Blizzard announced the distribution of a beta key for an unspecified upcoming game to attendees of BlizzCon, and perhaps most concretely, Blizzard announced at E3 that it has established a third team that is working on a title separate from Starcraft II and World of Warcraft. Senior VP of product development for Blizzard, Frank Pearce was almost obnoxiously vague about what this project is:

Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome.

Well thanks, Frank. What else would you say other than that? And for that matter, what else would we expect from Blizzard in the first place?

Perhaps Hellgate: London will have some success in satiating my desire for a little Diablo-esque fun. After all, it is being developed by a number of people from the original Diablo teams, supposedly with the purpose of giving fans of the game a little something.

Anyway, I’m personally keeping my fingers crossed that the new Blizzard project is some incarnation of Diablo III. If it is an MMO, I particularly hope that they’ll rethink the subscription-based scheme, though.