Beelzebabble: Diablo 4 Rumours Abound
Diabolical
Update: David Brevik has since tweeted that he's not involved in any Diablo projects at the moment. That's why you should never listen to gossip.
Alice is away today, so I'm posting a rumour. She'll be SO MAD when she gets back! Anyway, rumours are circulating that Blizzard might be about to announce Diablo 4 at next month's Blizzcon. Each rumour on its own is piss-weak, but together they seem to point in that sort of direction. Or perhaps to a big expansion for Diablo 3 [official site]. Or they're just mucking around to make everyone feel silly. Fortunately I've now laced this post with enough doubt and cynicism to excuse myself from concern.
This all begins with the most tenuous of conspiracy theories, summed up by YouTuber Rhykker right here:
If you would like to spare yourself watching a man try to hold a die near a camera for an aeon, it seems a four-sided die included in the BlizzCon promotional bumph has gotten the internet chatting, believing that its odd printing of little dots suggests not only Diablo 4 (D4, geddit?), but also a date (you don't care how), the 4th November. To us Brits, that's the day before we encourage our children to burn the effigy of a 450 year old man because we apparently live in The Wickerman, but to Blizzardanians, it's the big annual BlizzCon.
The die does indeed come in a Diablo-themed pouch, and they could well be about to announce a table-top Diablo D&D-style game. Gosh, that would be brillo. But, there are some more bits and pieces.
Quirky little RPS tribute site PC Gamer reports that Diablo 2 honchos David Brevik and Bill Roper have been seen picking through the bins outside Blizzard HQ recently, and Brevik yesterday mysteriously tweeted a reference to Diablo with a picture of a constellation.
Talking in present tense about being an adviser is rather suggestive. But again, not necessarily of a fourth game, but perhaps a big extension of the third. And that's apparently Libra, with eight stars, which suggests to me it's clearly going to be Diablo 8. Or Libra is scales, and maybe the scales are going to be removed from our eyes! The truth will be revealed! Blizzard will show us the One True Path! Or perhaps it's nothing and someone at Blizzard is wondering if they can retrospectively claim this as deliberate.
Update: Brevik has since said that he's not working on Diablo at all:
Which means he really needs to learn about tenses, and tweeting mysterious photographs for no apparent reason.