Diablo 3 First Quarter 2012?

“Soon” Was Too Soon

That was all that it really took to kill the dreams of many fans hoping for a happy holiday season filled with slaying monsters on their way into the depths of Hell.

Blizzard had different plans unfortunately as earlier today they announced, to the dismay of millions of fans, that they will be unable to hit their rumored target of late 2011 for their flagship Diablo 3 video game release.

We commonly use the term “soon” when referring to Blizzard releases, because we know that no matter how hard we’re working to reach a target, we’re not going to compromise and launch a game before

it’s ready. For Diablo III, we were aiming to launch by the end of 2011. As we’re announcing globally today, our new target for the game is early 2012.

While this news might not be a complete surprise, I know that many of you were hopeful that Diablo III would ship this year. We were too. However, this week we pulled together people from all of the teams involved with the game to decide whether we felt it would be ready before the end of December, and we grudgingly came to the conclusion that it would not. Ultimately, we feel that to deliver an awesome Diablo sequel that lives up to our expectations and yours as well, we should take a little more time and add further polish to a few different elements of the game.

The upside of today’s announcement is that we will be running the beta test longer than we initially planned, which will allow us to invite more of you who have opted in.

For those taking on the Diableard challenge, we salute you — and now fear for your well-being and personal hygiene. We hereby issue an official reprieve to all Diableard participants, including Blizzard employees, if you want to trim or otherwise manage the lower half of your face. We’d still love to see your beardly achievements, and we look forward to seeing more of your efforts as we move into 2012, but not to the detriment of your workplaces and significant others.

Thank you everyone for your support and anticipation for Diablo III. We’re still moving ahead at full pace, and we’ll be keeping you fully informed of any news and developments here at Diablo3.com, including the specific release date when the time comes, so stay tuned.

-Mike Morhaime

Quoted text from – Blizzard’s Diablo 3 Page

While this may be bad news to those hoping for a speedy beta test and sooner release of the final game, in all honesty, it’s for the best. Blizzard tries very hard to release their games without major bugs and extremely polished. They have a reputation to uphold and opt not to go for the sure fire holiday sales scheme to bump up sales only to release a product that will make people unhappy.

Honestly, I can’t help but be a bit torn, as I’m dying to get my hands on a copy of this game, and hope that soon the beta invites will be sent out to the general public, myself included. Until then I’ll be watching Youtube game play commentary and wishing I had started reporting on Blizzard games back in 2000 when I might have actually qualified for a media pass!

How do you feel about the delay? Do you feel that the extra time will help make a better game and a better launch or are they spending too much time perfecting every little detail? Comment below!

Filed under: Diablo 3