StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will not be released by the end of 2009 as previously stated, Activision Blizzard said Wednesday.

Confirming suspicions of fans and analysts that a delay was inevitable, the press e-mail from Blizzard PR said the reason is due to prepping the new version of their proprietary online gaming service Battle.net for the game's launch:

Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.

The press release went on to say that Blizzard "will always take as much time as needed" to meet the quality expectations of players and themselves as developers.

The company promises to continue to refine the real-time strategy game and says it expects it to be released in the first half of 2010.

StarCraft II is the latest game to be delayed out of the 2009 holiday season.

See Also: