Twenty years after 'Diablo II (2000)', Deckard Cain and his niece Leah travel to Tristram where a falling star causes Cain to disappear. The Nephalem (a Barbarian, a Witch Doctor, a Wizard, a Monk or a Demon Hunter) sets out to rescue him.
Wander into the Ruined Cistern and you might run into a group of elite Berserkers named after actual New York Giants players, including Jacobs the Gigantic and Bradshaw the Behemoth. No idea who on the dev team was the football fan, but they had fun with it.
Sometimes the Cemetery of the Forsaken swaps its usual Defiled Crypt for one called Development Hell, and every single monster inside is named after a real Diablo III staff member. You can literally fight lead director Jay Wilson in there.
After you take down Ezek during the Broken Blade quest, three skeleton guardians show up named Brother Larel, Brother Karel and Brother Moek. Say them out loud and it clicks: it's a goofy little Three Stooges reference tucked into a pretty grim questline.
Composer Matt Uelmen wrote Diablo's Tristram theme on a 12-string guitar, and it became so recognizable that when Blizzard wanted to announce Diablo III at BlizzCon 2008, all they did was have a guitarist strum the opening chords onstage. Apparently over ten thousand people in the crowd knew exactly what game was coming before a single word was said.
