'Eyes' in Blizzard teaser confirm Diablo 3?

  • By thorsen-ink, GameSpot
  • Posted Jun 26, 2008 11:58 am PT

Source: See below. What we heard: After drawing out last year's reveal of StarCraft II via a long series of cryptic teasers, Blizzard appears to be at it again. Once more, the Irvine, California-based developer is preceding one of its Worldwide Invitational events with a week of mysterious...

Source: See below.

What we heard: After drawing out last year's reveal of StarCraft II via a long series of cryptic teasers, Blizzard appears to be at it again. Once more, the Irvine, California-based developer is preceding one of its Worldwide Invitational events with a week of mysterious homepage art on its official Web site. Though Blizzard has declined to comment, speculation is rife that the $100-million-per-month company will use this Saturday's WWI in Paris to reveal Diablo 3, the existence of which has been rumored for years.

This time around, the art on the page shows shards of what appears to be a roof of ice slowly melting away to reveal a night sky. In the past few days, said sky has filled with stars and ice flecks that had previously been semi-obscured by a mist. Today, as the mist slowly cleared, two points of light appeared to shine brighter--two points that to many viewers appear to resemble a pair of eyes.

Although the "eyes" theory sounds like wishful thinking among gaming geezers old enough to have developed carpal tunnel playing the 1996 original, it has more than a little merit. The Blizzard diehards over at WOW Insider have posted an extremely convincing visual juxtaposition showing that the two "eyes" are in the exact same position as the eyes on the Diablo II box. The visual overlay leaves no doubt that whoever created today's image intended the two pieces of light to be in the precisely the same location, either to further tease eager gamers or to throw them off the scent. The question is: Which is it?

The official story: "Eyes? There are eyes in that screen? How do you know they're not stars? Or snowflakes?"--A presumably grinning Blizzard rep.

Bogus or not bogus?: Someone in Blizzard's design department is either being semiclever or very cruel. And though it looks not bogus, the world will have to wait until Saturday to know if hell has indeed frozen over.

[UPDATE] On Friday, the Blizzard.com splash page changed further, showing the snowflecks/stars burning much brighter and what appears to be a bony brow above them. The new image leaves no doubt that these are eyes--but whose are they? The ice in the image has many believing the ocular points belong to the titular villain of the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King. However, the Diablo diehards still insist the glowing gaze is that of their demonic nemesis....

[UPDATE #2] Diablo III is now officially official.

511 Comments

  • tony2077ca

    Posted Mar 2, 2009 8:38 am PT

    anyone save the pictures i want them as my wallpaper

  • aura_enchanted

    Posted Jul 9, 2008 2:06 pm PT

    may diablo go with u my children, and burninate the line ups to get this game!

  • thug9cole

    Posted Jul 1, 2008 11:52 pm PT

    WOO!!

  • juliusIII

    Posted Jun 30, 2008 11:18 pm PT

    Its official, the badass devil is back
    its been far too long my friends

  • lew_0911

    Posted Jun 30, 2008 10:27 am PT

    I know. Ner'zul teams up with the Zerg.

  • Erebus

    Posted Jun 29, 2008 2:57 am PT

    Turns out it was Lost Vikings: Olaf's Odyssey

  • sc_ajk29

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 5:55 pm PT

    TOLD YOU SO!!!!!

  • crazyboy2737

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 9:34 am PT

    finally diablo III....im dying to play the new character...especially witch doctor.....

  • ghouston

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 9:32 am PT

    Well gents, I've been telling you for two days now. I had an inside source and knew it was Diablo 3 but nobody seemed to believe me. Ahh, vindication!

  • thor25br

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 8:06 am PT

    At LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • covertgamer78

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 7:42 am PT

    I was wrong about it beint WotLK, glad I was wrong.

  • elducko

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 6:59 am PT

    Its offical

  • DiscGuru101

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 5:03 am PT

    Joy! Hopefully in 2009.

  • captainamazing

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:57 am PT

    DIABLO 3 is OFFICIAL !!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:52 am PT

    man, all the researching and little experiements/theories i had surrounding that ice revealing more daily was well paid off... i'm really glad blizzard didn't get our hopes up on this one; way to reward the fans that have been pluggin away these past 5 days trying to find the meaning behind the runes and their specific placement

  • o0phantom0o

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:47 am PT

    man....that was cool....i was commentin abt how i thought it was gonna be warcraft, an all of a sudden, it changed. an confirmed DIABLOIII. hehe....all this heppened while i was typin my last comment.

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:45 am PT

    whew... now i can rest easy that we won't be seeing "Blackthorne: Blizzard Hates You" on the shelves in the next couple years

  • o0phantom0o

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:43 am PT

    hmmm....i dont know abt the runes. But looking at the eyes, their surrounding outline, an the frozen shards......my best bet is Warcraft.
    i say this bcuz in the end of the frozen throne, Arthus wears a helmet thats strikingly similar the the outlines........oh wait....its just updated......its.....
    DIABLO III........wow

  • AmCanadian

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:41 am PT

    Lol I just like... pissed myself

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:38 am PT

    OMG I can't wait to see the demo footage!!!

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:35 am PT

    LOL i don't even know if i'll be able to go to bed now

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:32 am PT

    lol i must've refreshed blizzard.com 20 times now in the past 10 minutes... the Diablo 3 logo just hits you right in the face, you can't help but gaze into it and take in the splendor..

  • AmCanadian

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:32 am PT

    CONFIRMED D3 FROM WWI MAINSTREAM!!!

  • Annogi

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:19 am PT

    I guess it was Diablo 3, they just changed it to the Diablo 3 logo

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 3:18 am PT

    CONFIRMED!!! DIABLO III IS BLIZZARD'S NEW GAME!!! WOOOOOT!!!

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 2:39 am PT

    5 minutes and counting ladies and gents! wooot!

  • zorky

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 2:37 am PT

    "Dhay" on the other blizzard thread said the blizzard.com
    splash-screen has changed from .jpg to flash.
    So I guess the screen will become more active at some time.

  • vunacar

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 2:33 am PT

    the eyes are more yellowy now, not pure blue like Arthas's.

  • Narof

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 2:26 am PT

    Looks like the Witch King to me to be perfectly honest.

  • vunacar

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 2:20 am PT

    New picture ladies! check it out, turns out its not Arthas, 5 runes shine hard, and theres a 6th smiley face rune, this just might be Diablo!

  • FireFist87

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 2:12 am PT

    Tell you guys the truth, we really can't tell at this point what game it's gonna be or pointing at. Iv'e done some research looking at a bunch of peoples posts and finding my own stuff online. So far what i found out, mainly about the glowing runes:

    1. Top Most rune = Viking Compass..Not sure really what it means.

    http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://brentberryarts.com/bjork_art/1582584c0.jpg&imgrefurl=http://brentberryarts.com/bjork_art/nordic_guidance_.htm&h=588&w=600&sz=486&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=_ARRTL2it0SmrM:&tbnh=132&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dviking%2Bcompass%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

    2. Top Right Rune = Hel Rune...Just a rune from Diablo 2:LoD symbolzing a link to maybe a Diablo 3 game.

    http://www.lewt.com/diablo-2/uswest-non-ladder/runes/hel-rune/

    3. Bottom left Rune ( looks like a mini space ship ) = Protoss Symbol from Starcraft.

    http://www.starcraft2.com/features/protoss/main.xml

    in the link on the left side of the list of units you get to choose, is the symbol on that rune.

    4. Middle Left Rune = Not sure really sure what it is, closest thing iv'e found to it was another Diablo 2 runes, not sure the name of it but i'll post the link on where i found it. Second row, second from the left.

    http://www.urdiablo.com/catalog/RUNEs-all2.jpg

    5. Bottom Right Rune = As for this one i don't know wtf that is so o well. So i'm not sure if this picture that blizzard has for us is pointing towards a specific game or not but we will find out. But just wild crazy guess going here, possible a Starcraft vs. Diablo type MMO? oooo interesting.

  • Shirokani

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:58 am PT

    It doesn't really matter if it's Diablo 3 or not, as long as they don't release a horrible game. However...if it IS Diablo 3 then it might be a little interesting to see Diablo utilizing the power of ice.

  • kokonut1971

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:52 am PT

    mmmmm not the pentagram is lit up...the real clues were in the pentagram which no one of course did any research on..everybody was just focused on the face in the ice....at this point it does not look like lich king stuff anymore...oh well, we'll know byt the end of the day...i hope!

  • FireFist87

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:43 am PT

    Ladies let us not bicker...let us just stay up for atleast another hour and a half and we will have our mystery game revealed. Let us all jsut hope it is what we all want. Not saying Diablo 3 jsut something we wil all enjoy.

  • xXFr34k_0uTXx

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:35 am PT

    Lol'd at the starcraft ghost comment.

    If this was starcraft ghost I think I'd punch my screen. =\

  • Xxann

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:32 am PT

    I dont know guys im thinkin THEY ARE STARTING UP STARCRAFT GHOST AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you really look close it perfectly matches nova's womanly facial structure.

  • xXFr34k_0uTXx

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:29 am PT

    This feels like Christmas.

    Vouch? =P

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:19 am PT

    heh ok i think i see the reddish markings you're talking about... but that's probably all they are really is just reddish markings... if we start tryin to decipher or put somethin to match every marking on this splash art, I think Bliz'll just give up on us all completely... lol

  • Xxann

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:17 am PT

    im not ruling out the possibility of it just being wrath of the lich king but the shape would not be right for the lich kings helmet

  • FireFist87

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:04 am PT

    Put your face practically to the monitor lol and you will see them. And if your too tired to be able to see the streaks then look very closely lower left of the far left rune and you will atleast see the scribbles. You can see those the best but the scribbles are actually everywhere.

  • AmCanadian

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:03 am PT

    I dont see any streaks either

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 1:02 am PT

    i honestly don't see the red streaks you're talking about... then again it is 4am and my mind isn't functioning at it's best right now...

  • AmCanadian

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 12:56 am PT

    5:30 am here. Lawl I wanna know what that teaser really is!

  • FireFist87

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 12:55 am PT

    O im thinking of staying up and reinstalling Diablo 2:LoD and getting back into it. {:-)

  • FireFist87

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 12:54 am PT

    I'm pretty sure people noticed this, but probably haven't looked closely at it. All over the ice if you look really closely, you can see streaks of red everywhere. At first glance i believed this to be maybe fire slowly thawing out the ice in order to reveal the image more and more. But then if you look even closer at those red streaks, you can see that they are markings. Especially towards the left side of the screen just a little lower left of the far left rune. So you can see that it is not fire but scribbled markings. Any thoughts on what those could be or mean?

  • Peenubus

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 12:54 am PT

    lol is anyone else here staying awake until the big announcement? it's goin on 4am here and i'm still goin strong!

  • AmCanadian

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 12:51 am PT

    Or maybe it is his hand? Giving us the finger >

  • AmCanadian

    Posted Jun 28, 2008 12:47 am PT

    The "Mountain" under the eyes is Diablos horn!

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