In what will no doubt come as no surprise to anyone, Starcraft 2 has been delayed until the “first half of 2010”. They stated that the delay was due in part to wanting the game to hit when they relaunch the Battle.net multiplayer service stating

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 Irvine, CA-based developer said in a statement. “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 new Battle.net service is slated to become an important piece of Blizzard’s anti-piracy initiative but the’ll use this extra time to really hone the game and fine tune it more.

Personally I’m not so sure that I believe this as their reason for pusing the release date as Blizzard is notorious for missing street dates due to their very high expectations and levels of quality. I enjoyed the original Starcraft, and will no doub play this one but I’m very unlikely to run out and pick it up the day it hits. What I really want is more Diablo 3 news. Speaking of Diablo, I have no idea how i missed the new trailer but DAMN does Diablo look pissed and scary. The gameplay also looks pretty fantastic.

For more about Starcraft 2 and to Diablo hit the links.