Only The Barbarian Will Return In Diablo III

When Blizzard announced the first two classes in Diablo III, the Barbarian and the Witch Doctor, at least one fan of the series was taken aback by the class rehash. That would be me, for the purpose of this post. After enduring such a long wait for the third Diablo installment, why resuscitate the Barbarian, when there are plenty of perfectly good fantasy game archetypes still left to explore? Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson says the reason is simple. The Barbarian in Diablo II could've been better. He was a bit more diplomatic in his dissing, saying that the brute force attack class had "room for improvement." There's one class that definitely won't be coming back for another appearance in Diablo III. And Wilson says that it was because that class was just shy of perfectly designed.The Necromancer, he said, was simply a victim of his own success. He was just too well crafted as a character, something that Wilson's Blizzard design cohorts, current and former, likely don't mind hearing. Necro fans on the other hand, probably won't be too thrilled to learn of his disappearance, despite the Witch Doctor class's similarities. Wilson says that there are absolutely no plans to bring back any other classes in the initial release, but, given that Blizzard wasn't breaking any news at Games Convention, wouldn't dish any details on what the remaining three classes will be. We have a sneaking suspicion that Blizzard will take advantage of its own event, BlizzCon, to make such an announcement. (C'mon, Bard! We really want to serenade Diablo's minions to death.)