Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has confirmed that Diablo III is already ‘heavily’ in development.

Speaking in an earnings call following the republishing of Activision’s Q1 results last week, Morhemie also confirmed that the series has sold 18.5 million units in total so far.

He said:

“The original Diablo has been widely credited with helping to revitalize the role-playing game genre. Combined, previous games in the series have sold over 18.5 million copies worldwide.

"As with StarCraft II, Diablo III will benefit greatly from our revamped online game service, Battle Net, since the focus will be on cooperative online play.

“I would also like to point out that sales of the previous StarCraft and Diablo games broke into the top PC games sales charts in the weeks following the announcements of StarCraft II and Diablo III. This activity shows that there is tremendous continued interest in these franchises, that gamers will go back and purchase games that have been out for more than eight years.

“We do not currently have a release date for either StarCraft II or Diablo III, but we can say that they are heavily in development on both games and we are committed to making sure these games meet and exceed the high expectations of our players.”