Thousand Pounder

Thousand Pounder was a special boss monster, seen in the WWI 2008 gameplay movie and a few related screenshots of Diablo III. He was seen in the Old Cathedral beneath Old Tristram. In the released game, his model is used for Colossal Golgors.

Summoning Ritual
The Thousand Pounder was to be summoned up in a scripted event. The in the gameplay demo is running through the dungeon, when he comes upon a circle of five Dark Cultists channeling their energy to call up a demon. At first there are three pale-skinned youths dancing in the circle. They explode one by one, and then from their blood and flesh the demon is conjured.

While the Barbarian watches, lights began to glow and the Thousand Pounder takes form. First his bones appear, then muscles, then skin over the top, until with a final explosion that sends the Cultists flying, Thousand Pounder bursts into life.

Once he is ready to rumble, Thousand Pounder moves slowly, but has tremendous power, and deals heavy damage with his two large maces. When his health drops below about 50%, he kicks into a turbo mode. At that point his tattoos begin to glow red and he moves much more quickly. When he is defeated his death animation is basically the summoning animation in reverse; his skin sloughs off, then his muscles, before his bones clatter to the ground.

The Diablo III team on Thousand Pounder
Thousand Pounder was discussed in the WWI Denizens of Diablo panel.

"The other way we emphasize monster character and personality is to look at the monster on whole. How do they get on screen and die? He's going to be on screen in a cool way, so we went to the Thousand Pounder here. He's all 'bout hell. He's summoned from it literally piece by piece. When he gets on screen we figured he should be mad and big. Express anger. Part of his gameplay is that he gets really mad when he's almost dead. Throws a huge temper tantrum and this changes how he plays and how the player has to play against him. When he's enraged we changed how he looked; made his tattoos glow, gave him new attack animations and special effects. When he dies, the animation is somewhat a reverse of how he came on screen. We did this to show off the whole idea that he's from hell."