The final countdown continues!

To round out the days until May 15, we’ll be having a look back at some of the events that have brought us to release.

The Diablo franchise turned 15 on 31st of December, 2011.

The original Diablo game was roundly praised for it’s atmospheric setting, moody score, and addicting gameplay. An instant classic, Diablo had a significant impact on the point-and-click action RPG genre. In May, 1997, Diablo was named Computer Gaming World’s ‘Game of the Year’.

Although not considered canon, the Hellfire expansion for Diablo was released on the 24th of November, 1997. It added new classes and some new features to Diablo’s core gameplay, including the ability to run (in town only), a welcome change from the sedate stroll to which characters were previously bound.

Expanding the scope of the Diablo universe significantly, Diablo 2 was released on the 28th of June, 2000. No longer confined to a single village, Diablo 2′s story became an epic, world-spanning adventure. For a time, Diablo 2 held the record for being the fastest selling computer game of all time, with more than a million copies sold in its first two weeks of availability.  The game also won ‘ Computer Game of the Year’ from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

Lord of Destruction, the expansion pack for Diablo 2, was released on the 27th of June, 2001. It continued the story, sending the player to the ancestral lands of the barbarians in an effort to stop the depredations of the Prime Evil, Baal.

The Diablo universe also became the host to a number of pencil-and-paper RPG books, comics and novels including the titles:

• Demonsbane (2000)
• Legacy of Blood (2001)
• Tales of Sanctuary (Comic, 2001)
• The Black Road (2002)
• Kingdom of Shadow (2002)
• Moon of the Spider (2005)
• The Sin War: Birthright (2006)
• The Sin War: Scales of the Serpent (2007)
• The Sin War: The Veiled Prophet (2007)
• Book of Cain (2011)
• Sword of Justice (Comic, 2011-2012)
• Diablo III: The Order (2012)

The long- and eagerly- awaited third game in the series, Diablo 3, will be released on the 15th of May, 2012. It picks up the story some twenty years after the events of Lord of Destruction, with whispers of a new demonic onslaught waiting to begin.

Diablo Retrospective