Diablo III out on 15th May

Yup, it’s been announced. Diablo III officially ships 15th May, 2012.

We thought this day would never come.

“After many years of hard work by our development team and months of beta testing by hundreds of thousands of dedicated players around the world, we’re now in the homestretch,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We look forward to putting the final polish on Diablo III over the next two months and delivering the ultimate action-RPG experience to gamers worldwide starting on May 15.”

In Diablo III, players get to select one of five classes — barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, monk, or demon hunter — as they undertake an epic quest to rid Sanctuary from the corrupting forces of the Burning Hells. The game was built from the ground up to leverage the full functionality of the Battle.net platform, ie its matchmaking and communication tools. Bnet also provides a secure infrastructure for the auction house that allows you the option of using real-time money. This can be done via your Battle.net Balance, for the purchase of a variety of digital products through Battle.net including auction house items. Further details related to the auction house will be announced in the coming weeks.

Global digital presales have started for Diablo III. You can get your digital copy at http://www.blizzard.com/games/d3/. Alternatively, the purchase of an annual pass aka a one-year commitment to World of Warcraft gets you a free digital copy of Diablo III. This offer will expire at 0001 hrs PDT on May 1st. More info can be found here.

Diablo III will be available for Windows^® XP/Windows Vista^®/Windows^® 7 and Macintosh^® at a suggested price of US$59.99 for both the retail DVD version and the digital version sold directly from Blizzard. A special alabaster-white Collector’s Edition, sold exclusively in retail stores at a suggested retail price of US$99.99, will include the full game on DVD, a behind-the-scenes Blu-ray/DVD two-disc set, the Diablo III soundtrack CD, a 208-page Art of Diablo III book, and a 4 GB USB soulstone (including full versions of Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction^®) and corresponding Diablo skull base, as well as exclusive in-game content for Diablo III, World of Warcraft^®, and StarCraft^® II: Wings of Liberty^®. Diablo III has received a Mature rating from the ESRB.

No Singapore prices have been released yet, but if StarCraft II was anything to go by, expect to have a hole in your pocket soon enough.