Is Diablo III coming out soon? Blizzard announces final playable characters

Video game creator Blizzard Entertainment unveiled the newest and final class of playable characters for Diablo III, the “Demon Hunter,” today — a signal that the game might finally be moving toward a final product and have a release date in the near future — today at Blizzcon 2010 in Anaheim, Calif.

Blizzard has been mum on a release date for the newest iteration of its dungeon crawler, but now that the final class has been announced it means that development of the game might finally be coming to a close. Its last version, Diablo II, came out 10 years ago — with a new expansion nine years ago.

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The creator of games like World of Warcraft is also taking another page from its other books by introducing arena-style player-versus-player, or PVP, combat to Diablo III. PVP combat is already incredibly popular in World of Warcraft, its flagship online game that features a persistent world that gamers can explore and play in.

The Demon Hunter is a ranged class (it shoots stuff) that uses two crossbows and a number of traps and grenades to kill demons. She’s fast, powerful and completely ruthless, using special skills to kill enemies without letting them get close. The Demon Hunter joins the Witch Doctor, Monk, Barbarian and Wizard

The Diablo games allow anywhere from two to eight players to jump into discrete games with randomly generated dungeons. The goal is to prevent the forces of Hell from taking over the world by defeating Diablo, the lord of terror, and his cohorts. Players chase after loot like powerful items and weapons to use against other enemies and players or for trade.

Blizzard announced Diablo III at Blizzcon in 2008, and has unveiled a new class at each new Blizzcon. Diablo has taken somewhat of a backseat to Blizzard’s larger game, World of Warcraft, and its newest release Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty — but Blizzard made sure to bring the spotlight back onto Diablo III by keeping it the focal point of the opening keynote at Blizzcon this year.