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*'''Late 2000'''. Preliminary work begins on ''Diablo III''.
*'''June 29, 2001'''. ''Diablo II Expansion ''released.
*'''May 28, 2003'''. The "Big Four" resign from Blizzard North. ([[Bill Roper]], plus Blizzard North company founders [[Max Schaefer]], [[Erich Schaefer]], and [[David Brevik]].)
*'''June 11, 2003'''. Rick Seis named new head of Blizzard North.
*'''September 22, 2003'''. [http://hellgate.incgamers.com/w/index.php/Flagship_Studios Flagship Studios founded] by Bill Roper, Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik. Joining them as co-founders are five other principles, [[Kenneth Williams]], [[David Glenn]], [[Peter Hu]], [[Phil Shenk]], and [[Tyler Thompson]]. All were working at Blizzard North before quitting to join Flagship.
*'''April 27, 2005'''. (Unconfirmed.) Recording session for ''Diablo III ''soundtrack held in Bratislava, Slovakia, with the Slovak Radio Philharmonic.
*'''August 1, 2005'''. Blizzard North closed, employees offered severance or a transfer to Blizzard's Irvine HQs. The one remaining ongoing project (universally presumed to be ''Diablo III'') put on hold pending a thorough review. (Almost all of the work done by Blizzard North is eventually tossed and development is essentially begun from scratch by a new team at Blizzard Irvine.)
*'''October 28, 2005'''. Massive rumors about ''Diablo III'' leak from [[Chris Hartgraves]], an ex-Blizzard employee.*'''September 6, 2005'''. [[Rick Seis]], head of Blizzard North, evidently unhappy with plans for the continued development of ''Diablo III ''at Blizzard Irvine, leaves the company and joins numerous other ex-Blizzard North/Diablo team members at Castaway Entertainment.*'''October 26, 2006'''. [[Richard Knaak]], author of several of the Diablo Novels, states that he is not writing books "for a dead game."*'''July 13, 2007'''. [[Frank Pearce]], senior vice president of product development at Blizzard, comments on the unannounced project. "Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome."
*'''2004-2008'''. Numerous Blizzard job openings offer positions on, "the team that designed ''Diablo ''and ''Diablo II''."
* '''June 21-27, 2008'''. Blizzard [http://www.diii.net/articles/667288/wwi-splash-image-mystery-day-4 posts mysterious splash screen images] on their home page, one per day, building anticipation for some sort of announcement at the WWI event the coming weekend.
