Diablo 3 Quasi-Delayed To 'Early 2012'

Bad news, everyone: Diablo III won't be gracing your hard drives this year, I'm afraid. Blizzard have announced their joyous but cruel hacker-slasher has slipped to early 2012. No real reason given, but Blizzbozz Mike Morhaime suggests it's just a matter of wanting to put more dev time into D3. Could it be that the beta has turned up unexpected problems? Or that they're using the extra time to include an offline mode? No, that's just my wishful thinking speaking.

Morhaime quote below, anyway.

"With every game we make, the temptation is always very strong to launch as soon as possible. However, we didn't put so many years of work into Diablo III to release a game that was almost ready. The beta test is going very well, and we look forward to making the most of the extra time we're taking to deliver an experience that lives up to our vision for the game and the expectations of our players. Next year is going to be an incredibly busy one for Blizzard, and we hope an incredibly fun one for Blizzard gamers."

Like they've ever launched as soon as possible.

They will be expanding beta plans and number of participants, however. You can request to potentially be included in the next round of applicants in your Battle.net account management page.