Fatalities

Fatalities were special death animations that have both the killer and the killed act together to perform a synchronized death scene. They made an appearance in the Diablo III gameplay trailer.

The Siegebreaker Assault Beast showed off two such fatalities. First, the Siegebreaker picks up the female Witch Doctor, howls at her, then throws her to its feet. It seems that when it does so, it spreads the flames on his body, due to an earlier Fire Bomb attack, on the Witch Doctor, charring her to death, and then, throws her on the ground.

Later, it picks up the male and bites his head off, throwing the beheaded corpse off the screen. It must be noted that although both corpses fly off the screen at the end of the battle, their markers are still present in the mini-map at the spot at which they were killed.

It has been confirmed that fatalities aren't one hit kills, they are only executed when a normal attack would otherwise kill the player. A Bashiok post has confirmed that they were specially created for the gameplay video, but the dream is to include them in the final game as well. It has been stated later that it was too hard to implement into the actual game. Aside from technical difficulties with modelling, it would also disrupt the gameplay. The fatalities were partially implemented in form of many attacks (including Critical Hits) brutally destroying the victim's corpse.

Fatalities were removed from the game due to the variety of enemies in the game, and the inability to standardize animations. It would likewise mean making very expensive animations for things that were rarely ever seen.