Blizzard Creates Horadric Apps, Kinect StarCraft for April Fools 2011

Blizzard continues its tradition of successful April Fools pranks in 2011.

Today, Blizzard revealed the future of StarCraft, World of Warcraft, and Diablo, except not really, because it’s April Fools Day. Instead, Blizzard has once again whipped out its bag of pranks in what’s become a yearly tradition.

For this go around, Blizzard created a prank for each of its major franchises. Let’s start with World of Warcraft‘s upcoming Tomb of Immortal Darkness raid dungeon, located beneath Duskwood’s Raven Hill Cemetery. Inside lies Omgsogoth, the Dark Lord of Twilight, obscured by Blizzard’s new Deep Dark technology. This basically basks the dungeon in complete darkness, making players wish they’d invested in a Goblin Flashlight. Screens are below, while video, loot drops, and achievements can be found here.

Second, Blizzard unveiled a brand new direction for the StarCraft franchise. It’s not only coming to the Xbox 360, but will also feature Kinect support. StarCraft: Motion Overdrive allows players to use Kinect to control their forces with nothing but the air at their fingertips in split-screen or online multiplayer. It might just get you a little too involved with the game. Check it out:

Finally, Blizzard divulged the details on Diablo‘s upcoming Horadric Cube mobile app. Whereas the Horadric Cube in Diablo II allowed players to combine items to create weapons, armor, runes, and one very special bovine portal, the Horadric Cube app allows users to combine their apps into new ones. For example, one might combine Fruit Ninja with Angry Birds to create Ninja Birds, or Google Maps with Foursquare to create a teleporter. A second phase in the Horadric Cube’s development will introduce translocation, giving users the ability to open portals to the Burning Hells and “descend into madness as [they] slip through space and time untethered by sanity.” I might skip that update. More details are available here.

So that’s April Fools Day 2011 for Blizzard Entertainment. Next year, perhaps there’ll be a fourth prank.

Update: Blizzard also revealed a crab-tastic World of Warcraft dungeon helper!