Diablo III Interview, Release Date Confirmed For 2011 or Later

During a brief interview with Techland, Blizzard Entertainment’s Rob Pardo took the liberty to confirm that their third Diablo installment won’t be released any earlier than 2011.

(We always announce all of our games too early,) Pardo said, referring to when Diablo III was unveiled at Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational in 2008. (We realize that and go, ‘˜You know what? Next time we’re not going to do that.’ And then we always fail at that. But I’d rather fail at that than fail at making the game great. I think it’s safe to say that, yeah, (Diablo III) is not going to be out next year.)

When asked if the long wait for the highly anticipated game is because of the company’s other priorities, Starcraft II and the new World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm, both due in 2010, he said that that wasn’t the issue.

(Each game has individual development teams; it’s just that the way that we develop games, we develop them very iteratively,) he explained. (We just have a different process and approach than a lot of other studios, and it makes it a very difficult process for us to predict street dates when we’re multiple years out.)

I have the sneaking suspicion that this game is going to end up on consoles yet. By 2011, that might mean an entire new generation of consoles, too.