Blizzard Entertainment have been hard at work for quite some time now on Diablo II, the sequel to their superb RPG/Action game, and the release date isn't too far off.

Set in a realm of dark fantasy you take on the role as an adventurer who has to journey across distant lands, fight villains, discover treasures and magical artifacts and unravel ancient mysteries. Sounds fun? It ought to be as Diablo II is more or less just "more of the same". And when we say "more", we mean it. There is a set of five different character classes from which to choose: Barbarian, Necromancer, Amazon, Sorceress and Paladin (that's two more than in the original). There are four towns packed with NPC's for you to interact with (there was only one in the original), and there's multiple dungeons, caverns and crypts for you to explore in each town.

As it should be, this much expanded game world will be jam packed with new monsters to kill, weapons (magical and not) and spells to spread destruction and quests to embark upon.

You might well have heard a bit about this. Diablo II, a 2D game by essence, will actually feature 3D acceleration support. So far only 3dfx accelerators will be supported so if you're really, really interested in Diablo II I'd suggest you throw a 3dfx board in your system sometime soon, be it a Voodoo 2 or Voodoo 3.

What does 3dfx accelleration do for Diablo II then, well, not all that much. It adds improved transparency effects, colored lighting, smoother shadows and transitions between light and dark areas, atmospheric effects and of course, faster frame rates.

Diablo II will of course herald its online play and you can join Internet games via Blizzard's Battle.net or just play over a local LAN connection. The game will support up to eight players at once, which is twice that of Diablo and should mean more fun for you online players.

Expect Diablo II to ship: whenever, until then, take a look at these lovely shots.

Developed By: Blizzard
Published By: Blizzard
3D Card Support: Yes
Multiplayer Support: Yes
Web Site: http://www.blizzard.com
E.T.A: When Its Done