Jay Wilson from Blizzard Entertainment posted a development update on the Diablo III forums in which he stated that the release date announcement would be in the 'near future' and that development was going well and that the game was in 'good shape'. This latest update follows the recent patch 13 release last weekend which saw an overhaul of the game's rune system and skill interface which received mixed reactions from the community:

Some of you might have seen some headlines or a certain (obviously sarcastic) blue post that implies that we're unsteady about where Diablo III stands, and that you should temper your expectations when it comes to the next installment in the Diablo series.

Let me be clear: Nothing could be further from the truth.

As those of you in the beta have seen, the game is in good shape. Actually, I should say that the beta version of the game is in good shape. The latest full build we've been testing here in the office is in great shape.

We get a lot of sympathy from the other teams because of the long hours of crunch our design team is putting in, but the secret is that playing through the game as we do final tuning, bug fixes, and optimizations is a real joy. We always know a Blizzard game is almost ready when we have to ask members of the team to stop playing so they can get their work done. That's definitely been the case around here.

We think you're going to love Diablo III when it's released, and speaking of release plans, you can seriously expect a launch-date announcement from us in the near future. See, I didn't say soon, so I'm not taunting you. ;) You�'l know as soon as I know for sure the exact date.

And by the way, we want you to have high expectations for Diablo III and all Blizzard games. That�s what pushes us to try to make the best gaming experiences we possibly can. If Diablo III wasn't a worthy next installment in the Diablo series, we wouldn't release it. That's the way we do it. That's the way we've always done it.

As I've said many times in the recent past, we think Diablo III is coming along great and we can't wait for you to get your hands on it. We're doing all we can to ensure you have one hell of a time once you step foot in Sanctuary

Also, I think Diablo is much more comparable to the Evil Dead series personally, and those just kept getting better. OK, I know a lot of you prefer Evil Dead 2 to Army of Darkness, but come on, Bruce Campbell fights a squad of little Bruce Campbells! Priceless. =)