Following Blizzard's recent announcement that the publisher would be temporarily excising PvP functionality from its upcoming role-playing game Diablo III in the hopes of getting it out to stores sooner, we expected we'd hear a finalized release date for the game soon after. And now we know.
Blizzard today revealed that Diablo III will finally be released on May 15, both at retail and via Battle.net. Those who pre-purchase the game via Battle.net will get to play "as soon as the servers go live"--just not in PvP of course.
Granted, the vast bulk of the comments from that previous announcement seemed totally fine with leaving the PvP for another day, so long as they could get their hands on the single-player and co-op content all the sooner.
Of course, the real issue with this forthcoming release date (as mentioned on twitter by Giant Bomb family friend Giancarlo Varanini) is that it's hitting stores right around the time most American students have finals, all but ensuring more Fs than society has ever seen at a single time. Grades will have to be repeated, whole years of college will go down the drain, and ten years from now, an entire generation of role-playing fans will suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of a gas station counter studying up for their air conditioning repair exams while wistfully staring out the smog-stained window, wondering where it all went wrong.
Thanks, Blizzard.