Blizzard Hints at New Game?

Free to Play WoW? Starcraft II? Enigmatical Blizzard!

The website of 1UP has released an article about the speculation of Diablo III.

The details are as below:

This weekend, Blizzard's 2008 Worldwide Invitational kicks off in Paris, France, and it will host the official unveiling of Diablo III.

Okay, we have absolutely no official information to back that up. So why, then, do we state it so confidently? Simple: Last year's Invitational in Seoul, South Korea hosted the unveiling of Starcraft II, and we've compiled a hefty list of evidence that clearly suggests Diablo III will follow in its Zergling footsteps. Behold these reasons five:

Reason the First: Blizzard's Big Tease

Remember when we said the teaser image that showed up on a Blizzard splash screen the other day was most likely for Wrath of the Lich King? Uh, we're going to have to call a mulligan on that. There have been some updates to the image since it first showed up, and while it's not conclusively pointing toward Diablo III, it's certainly not conclusively pointing toward Wrath of the Lich King, either.

DiabloFans has done some bang-up detective work on this, and they've discovered a number of interesting aspects to the tease. When it first showed up, there was an image visible in the ice that resembled a rune from the Frostmourne sword, which Warcraft fans would know seemed to suggest a Wrath of the Lich King connection. But yesterday, another rune showed up that clearly resembled the Hel Rune from Diablo II. Confirmation! Clearly this means the teaser points to a Diablo III announcement, right?

Well, not necessarily. There was yet another update today, and this time there's a rune resembling the Akilae Tribe symbol from Starcraft II. This means all three of Blizzard's big franchises have gotten a nod in the tease so far, with two more runes likely showing up tomorrow and Friday. Confusing things even further is that with each day, an additional segment of a piece of concept art has been revealed in the master.CSS of the splash page, and when put together it evidently may be some sort of...monstrous penguin?

Okay, so what does it all mean? Well...hell if we know, to be honest. But it is worth noting, as DiabloFans has, that so far the runes are shaping up into what may work out into a pentagram shape. Pentagrams are certainly hellish, aren't they? And not for nothing, but it does look like that ice is melting as though something really hot was underneath. Doesn't it? Doesn't it? Hmm....