on at STI, since STI collaborated and integrated more game professionals from Japan than any of Sega’s other studios. In 1996, three years after he first interviewed with the company, Hedlund ran into the three founders of Condor (STI and Condor were closely located on the eastern edge of the SF peninsula). He was impressed by the potential of their latest game, Diablo, and immediately joined the team taking on the lead design role. Three months before the release of Diablo, Blizzard acquired Condor and renamed the company Blizzard North. Diablo would go on to become one of the most highly rated games of 1996. In the wake of Diablo'''s success, Hedlund designed Diablo II, which was released in 2000. The title went on to become the second-best-selling PC game of all time, the number-one-selling RPG on the PC with over 15 million units sold and, according to the 2003 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, the fastest-selling computer game ever sold, with more than 1 million units sold in the first two weeks of availability. According to the 2008 Guinness Gamer's Edition, the title still holds the record. Diablo II was also the recipient of many of the game industry's most prestigious awards, including the 2001 Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Game of the Year Award. While at Blizzard, he also participated in the design of both StarCraft and the Diablo II: Lord of Destruction expansion pack. Starcraft was the best-selling PC game of 1998 and received numerous Game of the Year awards. Diablo II: LOD was released in 2001, and helped to “reinforce the staying power of an already legendary RPG”. It too received numerous awards, including several for Best Expansion Pack of the Year, and tied with Baldur’s Gate II for Best RPG of the Year. On April 17, 2000, Hedlund announced that he would be leaving Blizzard North "as soon as his responsibilities for Diablo II (had) been fulfilled" in order to start a new game-development firm called Full-On Amusement Company with business partners, programmers, and artists from Virgin Interactive, Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Maxis. During this time, Hedlund was also named as the designer to collaborate with five-time Academy Award-nominated director David Lynch on his unreleased Woodcutters from Fiery Ships game project. Later in 2000, Hedlund joined Konami as the company's Creative Director and worked on titles such as