Diablo III recieves May 15 release date

Blizzard has announced that their hotly anticipated action-rpg Diablo III finally has a concrete release date. Those eagerly awaiting a trip to Sanctuary can pick up their copy when the game is officially released on May 15.

When released, the game will be available at retailers in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. It’ll also be available digital-only in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

Further localizations of the game will be available on June 7. These localizations will include Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, European Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Russian.

Giant Bomb purchased by CBS Interactive

CBS Interactive, the partent of popular gaming site Gamespot has done it again with their acquisition of Giant Bomb. The purchase comes as part of a larger deal that sees Whiskey Media, Giant Bomb’s previous parent company, being purchased by BermanBruan. Most of Whiskey Media’s sites will transition along to BermanBraun while Giant Bomb and Comic Vine move to CBS Interactive.

Jeff Gerstmann has revealed that he will explain why he was fired from the site back in 2007 in a livestream later today (4pm PST, 7pm EST). The livestream will feature Gerstmann alongside Gamespot boss John Davison and will be broadcast live on both Giant Bomb and Gamespot.

As part of the purchase, Giant Bomb will now move to the Gamespot offices.

Confirmed layoffs at IGN and 1UP

Sources at VG247 have confirmed that at least four IGN and 1UP staff members have been let go from the company. These staffers include Matt Leone, Jack Devries, Ryan Winterhalter and Thierry “Scooter” Nguyen.

As the day unfolds, we may hear of even more layoffs from IGN and 1UP.

Standalone Mass Effect FPS was a thing

Back in 2010, Bioware Montreal was developing what was shaping up to be a standalone, competitive multiplayer first-person-shooter based in the Mass Effect universe. Titled Mass Effect Team Assault, this idea eventually became the third-person co-op multiplayer mode that shipped with Mass Effect 3.

This comes from a new documentary-turned iPad app The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3. According to the documentary,

“To create a standalone multiplayer experience in the Mass Effect universe that would mix the play styles of Unreal Tournament and Battlefield 1943 — and likely be released as a downloadable game.”

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition coming this summer

Beamdog has revealed that their Overhaul Games division will be taking the lead on development of Baldur’s Gate: Enahnced Edition. The project sounds like some sort of HD update. A specific release date and platforms are currently unkown, but we do now it will come sometime this summer.

A Beamdog representative has revealed to Joystiq that “This is the Enhanced Edition, it’s not a repackage. We have the original source code and are doing a significant update.”

The team behind the game are also planning “regular announcements every week with more details.”

Call of Duty Elite subscribers receiving four more pieces of unnamed Modern Warfare 3 content this year

Activision has announced that four additional pieces of Modern Warfare 3 content will be delivered to Call of Duty Elite subscribers by the end of the year. No specific details were revealed about what the content is, but we do know that it will be provided during the planned Elite content “season”.

As a service, Elite has been faring quite well since its release. Nearly two million users have downloaded the service’s iOS and Android apps with new applications hitting tablets soon. Activision is promising a variety of unspecified updates to Elite’s functionality over the next few months.