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Blizzard Entertainment's recent announcement of Diablo III has led to a flood of new articles about the upcoming continuation of the successful action RPG series. IGN, Gamespot, Joystiq, and many other game websites have released interviews, previews, screenshots, and video footage from Blizzard's World Wide Invitational in Paris.

From an IGN interview with Rob Pardo:

The gameplay was also given several overhauls. "We were pretty heavily influenced by some of the games that were coming out like God of War, a very visceral game," said Pardo. "A totally different genre but you kind of saw games like that and we thought we really needed to update this game's gameplay…it has to be much more of an action game."

With many before the reveal buzzing about a potential Diablo MMO announcement, we had to ask: was there ever any thought to moving Diablo away from its overhead action-RPG roots? "It totally crossed our mind but this is the game we ultimately wanted to make. Obviously I love MMOs, I think it's a great genre, but that doesn't mean that other genres aren't great too. I actually see a huge opportunity in the action-RPG genre because nobody's really doing a lot of games in that genres and I don't understand why, personally."

The Witch Doctor will have control over disease, can summon pets, and can even control the minds of his or her enemies. We saw a few examples of these different approaches in the game demo: Locust swarm is a spell that summons a nasty horde of flying locusts that can overwhelm an opponent. Better yet, the locusts will automatically spawn to attack additional enemies in the area. We saw one pet in use too; the mongrel. This pet can attack enemies and can be buffed with other Witch Doctor spells; during the demo, the player cast locust swarm on his mongrel, giving the pet an attack bonus. We also briefly saw the horrify spell, which causes enemies to temporarily flee in terror. By far, his coolest ability was the wall of zombie, which was truly terrifying. If you've seen a wall of fire or ice in a game before, you probably have a pretty good idea of what this skill involves.

At first glance, the Witch Doctor resembles the Necromancer from Diablo II, both in his relatively skinny appearance (at least, when compared to the Barbarian) and through the class abilities (pet summoning, disease control). When asked about it during the gameplay design seminar, Blizzard developers were quick to point out that the Witch Doctor is very much its own class and that its presence in the game wouldn't necessarily require the removal of the Necromancer in Diablo III. In other words, it's conceivable that both classes could end up in Diablo III, even if it looks unlikely to us at this point.

GameSpot: D3 First Look

GameSpot: D3 Videos

IGN: Rob Pardo D3 Interview

IGN: Class & Skill Creation Panel Discussion

Joystiq: D3 Lore & Art Panel Discussion

Joystiq: Leonard Boyarsky & Brian Morrisroe D3 Q&A

UGO Gamesblog: D3 Preview

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