Rob Pardo, Executive Vice President of Game Design for Blizzard, has shared quite a bit of information regarding Diablo III's progress. While never giving exact dates, numbers, or details, he has alluded to some very interesting facts about the games development.
In the Beginning
Starting back in 2008, Diablo III was first announced at the World Wide Invitational in Paris. Soon following this announcement, Rob Pardo shared why they decided to announce the new game.
Official Blizzard Quote:
...it's probably been about 3 years I think since then and as far as why we're announcing now well it was just kind of the right time for the game. The game's really far along and it's really fun to play already even though we're not having a playable build here at the show it's pretty far along and it's already a fun game to play so we just felt like it was the right time to announce the game, and a great place too.
In this first interview regarding Diablo III, Rob Pardo also shared that Act I was playable. Now, we know that the Diablo Development team does not work linearly. So, if Act I was playable, then we at least know that back in 2008, the rest of the Acts were at least being worked on. Since then, we have learned that Act II at least has playable areas. However, Rob Pardo mentioned that there was still a lot of work to be completed on the Acts. He mentioned that specific areas were polished but not the whole Act. With two years of time to develop these Acts even more and knowing that the team polishes one area to get a reference for the rest of the areas, it is quite possible that all four Acts are closer to completion, at least environment wise.
The next clue we got on a purposed release date was given in another interview following the announcement. In the interview, Rob Pardo was asked about Blizzard's plan to release a new game each year and where Diablo would fall in this line up. The interviewer spoke about StarCraft II coming out in 2009 (keep in mind this was before the delay), World of WarCraft's Cataclysm in 2010, and Diablo following that. Rob Pardo responded by saying:
While this quote gives us no actual information, the fact that Blizzard has stated that they are trying to get a new game out each year and Diablo III following two other games, which are both now announced for actual release, this gives us a good idea that they at least originally planned Diablo III to be released in 2011.
In one last interview at the 2008 WWI, Rob Pardo was once again asked why they decided to announce Diablo III now, with two other major titles ahead. Again, Rob Pardo answered with an idealistic time line that they have for Diablo III.
Official Blizzard Quote:
The announcement of our projects is usually when it's time for that game to be announcedThis project has been going for a while and it finally got to the point where it felt like it's time to announce the game. We kind of have this rule of, ideally, we announce a game a year to a year and a half before the game comes out. That's our theory, and then three years later [trails off].
While the game was far from complete when first announced, Rob Pardo did give some interesting insight to just how far along they were at this stage and when they had planned on having Diablo III released.
StarCraft's Influence
Since this initial announcement and release of information, Rob Pardo has not spoken too much directly about Diablo. However, with StarCraft II at the peak of hype and close to release, he did mention a few things about StarCraft II that can be related to Diablo III's progress.
StarCraft II has both had an influence on figuring out Diablo III's progress but has also had no actual influence on its development. Let me start with how StarCraft II and its development, along with any other game Blizzard is working on, has no effect on Diablo III's progress. Back in 2008, StarCraft was pushed back with the decision to split up the game into three parts. Then in 2009, the game was pushed back even further due to Battle.net design and issues. Many worried that this delay would also mean the delay of Diablo III. However, this is just not the case. Mike Morhaime discussed that the delay of StarCraft would have no effect on the release dates of any other games they were making. He also went on to explain that the release date of any game would not push back any other release dates as proven by both StarCraft II and Cataclysm both coming out in 2010. Rob Pardo went on further to explain why this was.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Each game has individual development teams; it's just that the way that we develop games, we develop them very iteratively.
As mentioned, while StarCraft II has had no actual impact on Diablo III's development, there are some clues it gives us to when we can expect this game. Rob Pardo was asked in an interview about Diablo III's progress. While not giving any actual information he did share an interesting clue.
Official Blizzard Quote:
The development cycle will be more like StarCraft II. Wrath of the Lich King is an expansion set to a game that's very established in technology, pipeline, team, and everything else. Diablo III is a full-blown new product for us so it will be similar to StarCraft II.
Lastly, there is StarCraft II's sequel Heart of the Swarm that may give us some clues as to when we can expect Diablo III. First, let me begin by recanting a statement I made in my last "How Soon is Soon™" article. I made the statement that Rob Pardo had said that Diablo III would be released before the Heart of the Swarm expansion for StarCraft II. While I remember reading this "somewhere" I have yet been able to reproduce this quote. While it still may be true, I will not use it as a credible reference for Diablo III's progress. With that said, we can still use this to figure out some information on Diablo III's progress. Going back to Blizzard saying they want to release a game each year, many have said that HotS will be the game coming out in 2011. However, there is evidence that HotS will not be coming out before Diablo III. Rob Pardo recently mentioned HotS's progress.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Now that we’ve shipped “Wings of Liberty”, we’re just now getting serious about breaking ground on “Heart of the Swarm”. We always have a lot of ideas and there’s been some design work on it, but hardcore art and programming is just now starting to begin.
Unfortunately, Rob Pardo has not said much else in regards to Diablo III. Since 2008, Jay Wilson has taken over as the official spokesperson for all news regarding Diablo III. But, thanks to Rob Pardo and his early statements, we at least have a vague idea of what was planned and what they are shooting for with the release of Diablo III. I am still guessing June 28, 2011.
i think you could have added a few things said by Jay Wilson in more recent interviews that talk about the current development status of the game, though.
cool! can't wait
These things don't exist in a vacuum, Scy.
I'm still hoping for a release before june though, can't wait another year :/
And I guess in theory it's possible, an early 2011 date... By then I'm already well into my second semester at university, it's a huge amount of time!
i will kill for access to the beta xD
or have keys.
and i doubt its going to be open at first due to the past beta(s)
They are working on skill runes, items, and polishing acts. Those are late-development stages! This game is farther in development than we think...
They are probably just waiting until the battle.net 2.0 programming is stable.
maybe they're adding (or have added) a new mechanic for the passives or something else i cant think of.
at any rate, it seems the skills are almost completely done and only need some tweaking. and i'm pretty sure Diablo III wont have a beta for longer than a couple months.