Divide By Zero - a blog by Kamran Ayub

There’s a lot of speculation on what the Blizzard splash image is. Now it’s Day Five and there is a strong indication it’s just about Starcraft II. I think it’s a little more than that.

First, the eyes look just like the Protoss image that Kotaku compares it to and the Lich King’s face which I think is supposed to be ambiguous to point at both of them:

And the rune in the bottom left is easily this same one in this image pointed about by this astute commenter for the Protoss from SCII:

The rune on the top right is definitely the “Hel� rune from Diablo II:

The rune on the left is obviously the rune on the Lich King’s sword:

As for the other runes, well I think it’s apparent that we’re dealing with more than just a Starcraft II announcement.

Remember, June 29th is Diablo II’s 8th anniversary and the Diablo3.com site was just bought by Blizzard.

Here’s what I think:

• They will announce information for Lich King
• They will announce a release date for Starcraft II
• They will announce Diablo III

Furthermore, if you connect the runes together with straight lines, you get a pentagram. If they just decided to put five runes on the image then that really doesn’t matter, but if it was on purpose perhaps there’s more to the story.

If you were Blizzard and you wanted to announce Diablo III, you would know that tons of people would be psyched. Why in the hell would you reveal that for sure outside of the official announcement? My take would be to do exactly what they’re doing. Make the splash image primarily focused on another previously-announced game and incorporating subtle elements of a surprise to come. Since Diablo III isn’t the main take on this image, it could very well be a sly maneuver to hint at it.

All I am saying is that it would awesome if there is going to be a 3rd Diablo. The splash image has elements of Starcraft, WoW, and Diablo. Am I really that crazy?

PS. Check out some of these old responses to the first day that the Starcraft II countdown began, another splash image fiasco:

“It will almost definitely be something in the diablo series. Might as well accept it now. Blizzard cannot release a Starcraft game because they lack the resources to make it properly.�

“I highly doubt it will be Starcraft related. Either Diablo, or milking their precious WoW some more.�

Little did they know.

We’ll see how this ends up tomorrow.

Update: Uh huh, see what I'm talking about? I am probably not the first to claim a tri-announcement:

Thank you to this Kotaku reader for pointing it out.

This definitely means something related to all three franchises I mentioned. Diablo III is upon us [I hope]!