Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Morhaime announced Diablo III will ship early 2012 after all teams reached a consensus that some areas of the game needed further polishing. This means beta test will last longer and thus the gates for beta opt-in invitations will keep coming throughout what’s left of 2011. Keep your hopes up.

Pre-order Diablo III to get it automatically shipped upon 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

IRVINE, Calif.— Despite a sterling record of always hitting its release targets, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that the expected launch window for Diablo® III, the next title in the company’s critically acclaimed series of action role-playing games, will be moving into early 2012.

“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,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “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.”

Blizzard will use the additional time to extend the Diablo III closed beta test, which began September 20, potentially adding more testers than initially projected. Players who have an active Battle.net® account with any Blizzard game attached to it should visit Battle.net account management to opt in for a chance to participate in the beta test. Additional testing phases, as well as further details regarding the launch plans for the game, will be announced on the company’s Diablo III community website: www.Diablo3.com.

Thanks, AndyGo