Blizzard: Diablo 3 In Great Shape, Seriously Expect Release Date Announcement

Earlier this week Blizzard joked that players should lower their expectations for Diablo 3. Just in case you're not fluent in sarcasm, D3 director Jay Wilson sent out a message to gamers stating that they weren't serious and that the game's actually turning out great.

"As those of you in the beta have seen, the game is in good shape," said Wilson. "Actually, I should say that the beta version of the game is in good shape. The latest full build we've been testing here in the office is in great shape."

"We get a lot of sympathy from the other teams because of the long hours of crunch our design team is putting in, but the secret is that playing through the game as we do final tuning, bug fixes, and optimizations is a real joy. We always know a Blizzard game is almost ready when we have to ask members of the team to stop playing so they can get their work done. That’s definitely been the case around here."

Wilson said in January that a release date was "nearing." Today he reiterated that they're close to disclosing the date.

"We think you're going to love Diablo III when it's released, and speaking of release plans, you can seriously expect a launch-date announcement from us in the near future. See, I didn’t say 'soon,' so I’m not taunting you. ;) You’ll know as soon as I know for sure the exact date."

He added that they want gamers to have high expectations for D3 and other games. If they didn't think it was up to their standards, they wouldn't release it.

The sarcastic post from Blizzard earlier in the week suggested that gamers should expect Diablo 3 to be like a later M. Night Shyamalan movie (i.e. terrible). Wilson closed his letter with a different movie analogy.

"I think Diablo is much more comparable to the Evil Dead series personally, and those just kept getting better. OK, I know a lot of you prefer Evil Dead 2 to Army of Darkness, but come on, Bruce Campbell fights a squad of little Bruce Campbells! Priceless."