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[[Image:D3-title.jpg|thumb|300px|Diablo III title image.]]On June 28, 2008, [http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/080628.html Blizzard officially announced] ''Diablo III'', in Paris, at their World Wide Invitational exhibition. Prior to that announcement, ''Diablo III'' had existed only in rumors -- more than eight years of rumors that were so powerful the hypothetical game had taken on an almost mythical status. While this was the first official acknowledgment of the game, careful observers were in near-unanimous agreement that development of ''Diablo III'' had begun at [[Blizzard north North]] in the early 2000s, and continued at Blizzard Irvine following the closing of Blizzard North in late 2005.
Evidence for this hinged not on any one point of overwhelming evidence, but was instead built from a great deal of circumstantial evidence and leaked tidbits. Those strands of evidence were compiled on this page, which was updated until shortly before the official announcement, but is now retired, its purpose fulfilled.
The next big rumor about ''Diablo III'' turned up about a year later. As the tale goes, a Blizzard employee named Chris Hartgraves left the company in late 2005, and promptly spilled all he knew about ongoing projects at Blizzard. In an email posted on a World of Warcraft fansite forum<sup> [[#References|1]]</sup> on October 28, 2005, Chris was quoted saying the following about ''Diablo III'':
<blockquote>
It is about Diablo 3. Last week they had a thing called "Show N Tell" which they have every 6 months to all the full time employees - Anyways Diablo 3 takes place in heaven. Hell is trying to take it over and it is AWESOME looking ... I magine Imagine the brightness of heaven being taken over by the darkness of hell ... Imagine WoW but in a Diablo world in amount of size and playability ... Also, guild housing is available in this game for those of you who know about it. They should have a gameplay demo to show at BlizzCon.
</blockquote>
There was no way to confirm this account of ''Diablo III'', since, contrary to Hartgraves' prediction, the game did not debut at the 2005 [[BlizzCon]], and still hadn't made an appearance, more than 2.5 years later. That fact doesn't do much to argue for Hartgraves' claims, and they would be forgotten by now if not for the fact that he also said ''Starcraft II'' was under production long before it was officially announced. He also made several predictions about ''World of Warcraft'' in the same email, and most of them turned out to be accurate.
