Diablo III Has Close to 16,000 Dialog Lines

Video game developer Blizzard has announced that its upcoming hack and slash title Diablo III will have between 13,000 and 16,000 lines of dialog split between the various characters classes and the NPCs that players will meet throughout the experience.

Starcraft II, the real time strategy game from the same developer, and the MMO World of Warcraft only have around 3,000 lines of dialogue each, which points to a deeper than usual story for Diablo III and maybe some clever twists and turns along the way.

Blizzard also detailed a new way of suing audio effects and music during the battles, with the aim of making the experience more varied and keeping players interested in hearing them for the entire length of the game.

The developers have broken up the sounds for each characters skill and its use into three distinct components: a casting phase, one action loop and another effect for the final impact.

The actual sounds for each of them will be randomized.

Diablo III will also feature a soundtrack which incorporates the themes used by Matt Uelmen, the composer who worked on the first two titles in the series, who left Blizzard during 2007.

It's not yet clear whether the company plans to release a stand alone soundtrack for the game.

Diablo III is now in closed beta stage, with players able to use any of the classes in order to find and slay the Skeleton King, a boss known from previous installments in the series.

Blizzard has not made an official announcement but fans are expecting the game to be launched on the PC at some points during the first half of next year.

The developer has also confirmed that a small team is working on porting the game to home consoles like the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, although no time table for the launch has been announced.