During a recent press event, AMD introduced a new rendering technology capable of producing photo-realistic humans, as a handful of game developers lined up behind the hardware manufacturer. Dubbed Cinema 2.0, the technology is capable of producing photo-realistic characters (pictured left) by capturing human facial data using a rig that consists of a "globe-shaped room" ringed with high-definition cameras, according to Joystiq.

The digital character was then shown running in real-time, with realistic lighting and special effects.

Gaming developers Splash Damage, Crytek, Rebellion, Remedy and Blizzard were all named as partners of AMD during the presentation.

Blizzard also announced that it will be packaging its games with ATI video cards in a deal that will give the developer early access to AMD/ATI graphics technology.

Though Diablo III (PC) was only recently unveiled and has no release date at the moment, developer Blizzard already has "plans beyond" it for more Diablo titles, though it is remaining understandably quiet on the details.

"We're not saying [Diablo III] is the end of the Diablo universe, but we are trying to bring this storyline to a close," lead designer Jay Wilson explained to MTV Multiplayer. "It's not just Diablo III--we've got plans beyond."

Speaking of story, Wilson noted that Diablo III's will feature numerous characters from the first two titles, including Deckard 'You Have Quite a Treasure There' Cain.

"We also tried to focus a little more on bringing characters back, and not just from Diablo II but from Diablo I," he revealed. "People can expect to see characters from Diablo I, more characters from Diablo II, and characters from some of the books."

Along with a tradition of eventual sequels, Blizzard has a history of providing least one expansion for its recent PC games, including StarCraft, Diablo II, and World of Warcraft. The studio also has an unannounced MMO in the works.

Blizzard has confirmed to Shacknews that Diablo III (PC) art director Brian Morrisroe has left the company, but stressed that his replacement does not signal any profound changes for the hack-and-slash sequel's art style.

"Regarding Brian, he recently resigned to form a startup technology company (outside the game industry), which is why we've posted about the open position," a Blizzard representative told Shacknews in an email correspondence.

"This change won't impact the game... we're really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring on board will work with the other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward."

The response affirms remarks made by the company following criticism of the title's new art style, which employs a brighter color palette as contrasted against the darker, desaturated tones of preceding Diablo games.

Reports that Blizzard was actively searching for a new art lead for Diablo III raised questions as to whether the company would consider making changes to the game's visual style.

Update: Blizzard has provided more information on the listing, telling Shacknews that "this change won't impact the game... we're really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III."

Original Story: A new job posting on developer Blizzard Entertainment's website reveals that the company is looking to recruit a new art director for their anticipated hack-and-slash sequel Diablo III (PC).

The listing, pointed out by Kotaku, follows reports of a number of fans dissatisfied by Diablo III's brighter color palette as compared against the darker, less saturated look of previous Diablo titles. The new hire would presumably replace current Diablo III art team lead Brian Morrisroe.

While it is not immediately clear whether Morrisroe has left the company, it appears unlikely that the posting is a direct result of the fan response to Diablo III's current art direction; other Blizzard staffers such as designer Jay Wilson and lead producer Keith Lee have reaffirmed the team's commitment to the new art style, pointing out its practical and technical merits.

Shacknews has contacted Blizzard for clarification, and will update as soon as more information is made available.

Unsettled by the brighter color palette of Blizzard's Diablo III (PC), fans took to the internet with online petitions and doctored screenshots, attempting to show the developer the error of its ways.

But Diablo III designer Jay Wilson believes that those fans may not grasp the capabilities and limitations of the hack-and-slash sequel's engine.

Left, an unaltered Diablo III screenshot. Right, a fan Photoshop recomposition.

"The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn't created by the engine," Wilson told MTV Multiplayer, when asked of the screenshots pictured above.

"Though it looks really cool, it's almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can't have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable... Read more

Sales-tracking firm NPD Group today issued its list of the ten best-selling pieces of PC software in the United States across the week of July 20 to July 26, 2008.

Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest enjoyed its fifth straight week on the weekly charts, owing to the unveiling of Diablo III. The bundle fell to #6 this week from its spot at #4 during the previous reporting period.

This week's list sees the reemergence of Firaxis Games' Civilization IV at #9, first released in the fall of 2005.

1. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice / Her Interactive / $18 (Average)
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
3. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
5. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
6. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
7. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $30 (Average)
9. Sid Meier's Civilization IV / Firaxis Games / $30
10. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward / $50 (Average)

Blizzard Entertainment's anticipated PC sequels StarCraft II and Diablo III will track a player's achievements via a unified "Blizzard Account," World of Warcraft lead designer Jeff Kaplan has revealed.

"Eventually, our plans are for the Achievement system to become an account-based system," Kaplan told MTV Multiplayer. "For now the points are just a [World of Warcraft] character score. As we graduate to that Blizzard Account system, which is right on the horizon, it will switch over to a Blizzard Level."

Kaplan explained that a player's so-called Blizzard Level—essentially akin to the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Gamerscore—would be composed of achievements across numerous Blizzard titles including StarCraft II, Diablo III and World of Warcraft... Read more

Update: Later in the conference call, it was revealed that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will arrive between October and December.

Original Story: Blizzard Entertainment CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime today discussed the effects that the recent launch of Funcom's PC MMO Age of Conan had on World of Warcraft (PC).

"Age of Conan released with some initial success," Morhaime noted. "We did see some of our players leave, [but] about 40% of those players have returned to World of Warcraft."

According to the CEO, World of Warcraft has a key advantage as competitors are going up against "a product that has been continually enhanced, expanded and refined for almost four years now."

Morhaime refused to specify a release date for either StarCraft 2 or Diablo 3, merely noting that both games were "heavily in development" and that the... Read more

Blizzard today announced that tickets for its 2008 BlizzCon event will go on sale August 11. The show is set for October 10-11 in Anaheim, California.

Tickets will be priced at $100, and can be purchased on the official BlizzCon website.

The company also noted that BlizzCon 2008 will be broadcast live on DirecTV, with a minimum of eight hours of HD coverage being provided on a pay per view basis. Starting in August, new subscribers to DirecTV will receive the event for free.

Blizzard Entertainment recently revealed two new screenshots and concept art from its anticipated action-RPG sequel Diablo III (PC).

One of the two shots shows what appears to be the female variant of the Barbarian class in all her bone-crunching glory, compared against the silver-haired masculine counterpart. All of Diablo 3's five classes will be selectable as either male or female when creating a character.

No release date for Diablo III has yet been announced, with Blizzard executive VP Rob Pardo offering only that "we ship the games then they're ready." For more on the title, check out our exhaustive round-up of everything we know so far.

Serial codes handed out at Blizzard's BlizzCon 2007 and 2008 Worldwide Invitational will allow players access to a beta testing of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC), the company revealed today.

The news arose in a forum post written by a Blizzard representative, who stated that attendees of either event who have their keys on hand can register the codes on the company's official beta sign-up page.

Those eager players who did not attend BlizzCon or this year's Worldwide Invitational can participate in an "opt-in" beta sign-up, in which participants will be chosen at random. A launch date for the beta has not yet been disclosed.

Marking the second expansion of the wildly popular fantasy MMO, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will include the MMO's first Hero class, the Death ... Read more

Activision and Blizzard Entertainment parent Vivendi Games announced the completion of their multibillion dollar merger resulting in the creation of Activision Blizzard.

Originally announced in late 2007, the merger was approved by shareholders earlier this week. The new Activision Blizzard corporation is valued at roughly $18.9 billion, marking one of the largest corporate consolidations in the industry's history.

"We are very excited about the opportunity for Activision Blizzard to create a broader entertainment software platform," said Activision Blizzard chairman Rene Penisson. "We are determined to 'think big'!"

According to the terms of the transaction, Vivendi will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision. Through the merger and a $1.7B stock purchase, Vivendi will acquire roughly 358.3 million shares in the new company, amounting to a 52% ownership stake in Activision Blizzard.

Publisher Activision today announced that its merger with Blizzard Entertainment parent company Vivendi Games has been approved by shareholders, and the transaction is expected to officially close tomorrow, July 9.

The new company, dubbed Activision Blizzard, is valued at roughly $18.9B.

As per the terms of the merger, Vivendi Games will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision, and receive approximately 295.3M shares of Activision stock. Vivendi will also purchase nearly 63 million shares of stock at a total value of $1.7B, making Vivendi's ownership stake in the newly created Activision Blizzard around 52%.

Announced late last year, the Activision Blizzard merger is one of the largest corporate consolidations in the history of the gaming industry.

Despite ongoing efforts with StarCraft II, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and Diablo III, PC developer Blizzard has confirmed that it has another MMO in the works.

"There is still one unknown project," Blizzard executive VP Rob Pardo revealed to OnlineWelten during the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational. "We have another development team."

Pardo affirmed that Blizzard's recent job listings for an "unannounced next-gen MMO" were not related to Diablo III. The company had previously stated that the project was not a World of Warcraft expansion either.

Fans have long speculated that Blizzard may follow the ultra-successful World of Warcraft with a World of StarCraft MMO. The three-faction scenario and multi-world setting would seem to lend itself well to the MMO format.

Others believe that the project could be a new franchise, as Blizzard has not created a new property since StarCraft's release in 1998.

"The idea of a new franchise is very intriguing to employees of the company," said Blizzard chief operating officer Paul Sams to Gamasutra in a recent interview. "Are we ever going to release a new one? I would absolutely say we will at some point. I just don't know when that day will be quite yet."

And as for a release date on any of the three known titles? "We ship the games when they're ready," Pardo commented. "You guys know this."

Blizzard Entertainment COO Paul Sams criticized hardware manufacturer Microsoft's stewardship of the PC gaming market, suggesting that the company could do more to advance the platform.

"Well, their gaming focus is very much on the [Xbox] 360," Sams told Gamasutra. "And that makes sense, cause they're a hardware manufacturer as well as a software developer. And so they've got a lot of money and investment tied up in that system."

Sams referred to remarks made by Blizzard design VP Rob Pardo, who said at last week's Paris GDC that Microsoft's involvement in PC gaming amounts to "lip service", and that the company is more closely focused on supporting the Xbox ... Read more

After weeks of speculation, Blizzard has officially announced Diablo III at its World Wide Invitational event in Paris.

Said to feature more quests than ever, the anticipated sequel will stick to its roots by being "first and foremost a cooperative game."

Download Diablo III videos on FileShack.

Diablo III will feature old standards such as the quotable Deckard Cain, as well as a new version of Tristram and a fresh class dubbed the Witch Doctor. The jungle-born warrior will use ancient tribal magic to cast disease and mind control spells, in addition to utilizing pets such as locust swarms and mongrels.

The game will also include several control improvements, including full zoom capability and a hotbar to easily access skills. Players will be able to quickswap between skills using the mouse wheel or tab key.

Armor will now be class-specific, designed to provide each character a unique look. Classes themselves are more diverse, as it was noted that there will be female versions of both the Barbarian and Witch Doctor.

In a demo of the Barbarian class, the company noted that less of an emphasis will be placed on potions for health. Instead, red orb-like items will drop that immediately recover health once the player picks them up.

Environmental destruction was also shown off, with a character at one point busting through a solid wall. The environment can also be used to kill enemies, as in the case of objects that fell from a wall, killing a group of monsters.

Enemies were shown to be larger in scale than in past games, with giant evil trees and a massive demon called a Siegebreaker.

Blizzard has released a set of official features and a story description, which can now be conveniently viewed below the fold:... Read more

A new Diablo game announcement is almost certainly forthcoming based on a prominent notebook being handed out at Blizzard's World Wide Invitational in Paris.

The notebook (pictured left) was just handed out in advance of the event's opening ceremony, and was promptly captured by worldofwar.net. The show's banner image also features Diablo lording over StarCraft II's Kerrigan and Wrath of the Lich King's Arthas.

New Blizzard game announcements have been known to be revealed in the corresponding event's literature, as was the case with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King's announcement at last year's Blizzcon.

Diablo III was strongly rumored to be the announced project at Blizzard's WWI for weeks. A splash image on Blizzard.com has slowly revealed a face that resembles the title villain, with five runes surrounding it in a famililar pentagram formation.

Any details of the presumed Diablo title--including whether it will shift to the MMO genre--are still unknown. The opening ceremony is set to be held at 11:45am Paris time (5:45am EST). Stay tuned for further updates to this story as things get underway.

Update: The penultimate splash image has gone live and is mirrored below, complete with a new smiley-face rune and.. a piece of horn? Also copied is the already-released, completed concept art teaser. Original story: Blizzard Entertainment--the developers of WarCraft, Diablo, and StarCraft--is set to make a major product announcement at the opening of its World Wide Invitational in Paris tomorrow.

The show will begin at 11:45am Paris time, which translates to 5:45am EST and 2:45am PST. Blizzard is providing a live stream of the event on its official website.

Rumors abound that Diablo III will be the game revealed, with plenty of fan art based on the daily-morphing Blizzard.com splash image (ex. left) fueling the fire. The next image will apparently go live when the game is announced.

We'll be closely identifying every detail ourselves, so stay awhile and listen for up-to-the-minute news. Theorize on what the announcement might be like you're debating socket strategies. Hit that refresh button as if you were fast-casting meteor.

Update: The Blizzard.com splash image has been changed, with few new developments. The number/letter theory has been ruled out, as the new puzzle piece is numbered 23, which does not correspond to a letter in the word "Diablo." I've uploaded my own stab at the up-to-date puzzle, which you can view on the left.

Original story: Anticipation for a big announcement this weekend at Blizzard's World Wide Invitational event has reached a fever pitch after the company posted a slowly-revealing teaser image on its website.

While the icy image at first seems to be an obvious match for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King--a game set on a frozen continent--several images hidden in the page's source code have been found by internet detectives. In the hopes that Blizzard is pulling a fast one, some Diablo devout have pieced together a theory that the hellish action-RPG series will in fact be the franchise to steal this weekend's show.

Pieces of an apparent six-piece puzzle, the purple-dominant pictures are being released one at a time with each change of the splash image. Here's where things get crazy.

The images released thus far--named tundra 04.jpg and cavern 15.jpg--seem to fit opposing corners of the puzzle. Using logic that could only be derived from years of following the Nancy Drew saga, the detectives have speculated that... Read more

While developer Blizzard has yet to officially comment on the matter, rumors continue to circulate that the famed Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo creator will unveil a new title at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational on June 28.

The latest batch of activity comes from an Xfire.com update spotted by DiabloII.Net, in which Xfire encouraged users to "follow the opening ceremony and discover what new game will be announced."

Though Blizzard revealed StarCraft II at last year's Worldwide Invitational, that marked the only major announcement to come out of the event's three-year history.

As this year's Blizzard Worldwide Invitational takes place on June 29, the eighth anniversary of Diablo II's release, many have speculated that the company may finally premiere the long-awaited Diablo 3.