Blizzard's action-RPG for the PC Diablo 3 turned a year old on May 15, and to celebrate, the company is slashing the price of the game and offering buffs to all players.
Community manager Lylirra said on Wednesday that over the course of the year, millions of heroes have been created, billions of hours have been spent in games, and trillions of demons have been slaughtered without mercy. "We've grown and improved a lot since release, both as a game team and as a community, and thanks to your feedback, passion, and unquenchable bloodlust, we expect the next year to be even more epic," Lylirra said.
To celebrate the one-year anniversary, Blizzard is handing out free buffs to Diablo 3 players. Those who log in between May 15 and May 21 will receive a 25 percent boost to their Magic Find and +EXP stats. This buff will only be made available while the player is logged in to the game, but will apply to all characters as well as stack with other similar bonuses. The +EXP bonus will stack multiplicatively, and the Magic Find bonus will stack above the 300 percent cap, Lylirra said.
In addition to the birthday buffs, Blizzard is also slashing the price of Diablo 3 down by a third, selling the game for $39.99 until May 21, 2013.
Meanwhile, Blizzard has added the Diablo 15th Anniversary Album to the Blizzard music section of the company's website. This album features 17 tracks pulled from the original soundtrack including the intro theme, Tristram's guitar-laden theme, the background music used in the dungeons and more. Individual tracks are $1.29 USD; the entire album is $11.99 USD.
"We think the game's score is just as atmospheric and haunting now as when it was released (back when our computers had a whopping 16 MB of RAM)," Blizzard states.
Wow. It's been 15 years already? Actually, just over 16 years, as the game was originally released on December 31, 1996. Time flies.
