Good Morning everyone! It is now June 27th, and as expected, Blizzard's splash screen has changed yet again to reveal more of the mystery behind what they may be announcing at the Worldwide Invitational, which begins tomorrow. What exactly they're announcing is still up in the air, but there have been some interesting revelations, especially concerning the mysterious purple monster everyone's been wondering about.

The new graphic, named ice5.jpg, doesn't seem to have changed the cracking ice much, but what has changed is the "eyes." There's now very little doubt that they are glowing eyes instead of snow flecks, and to be frank, they do look remarkably like the eyes of Arthas the Lich King from underneath his helmet -- although the ethereal feel of them and the strange ridges being formed in the vapor are also very reminiscent of the Protoss. Whether these ridges indicate Arthas' helmet or the face ridges of a Protoss or a demon might still be up for debate, but this overlay of Arthas on today's splash screen by Zach is very convincing -- the eyes match up pretty much exactly. Hopefully, we'll know for sure who it is tomorrow.

In addition, the new rune, located just above the breaking ice, is that of a snowflake, which brings to mind the Frost tree of the Death Knights (even if the frost rune shown on the official Death Knight page doesn't quite match up). Tipster Allen notes that the new rune looks a lot like a Norse Bind-Rune, specifically one known as a compass or the "Helm of awe," which is often used for invulnverability -- perhaps a Lost Vikings reference, or a nod to the Viking-like architecture seen in many screenshots of Northrend?

All This new imagery would seem to be a killing blow of sorts for a Diablo 3 announcement, but it is also worth nothing that the new frost rune is in the correct area for the Pentagram theory to continue to apply. In addition, all 5 runes have lit up, so if you weren't able to get a good look at them before, you certainly can now.

Gallery: June 2008 splash screen speculation

What's really sort of interesting, though, is what our purple monster friend reveals, which I'll discuss after the break.