Battlefield Heroes pushed to 2009

Dice has revealed that it is shutting down the closed beta and postponing the release of its free-to-play online shooter, Battlefield Heroes, to 2009.

James Salt, senior producer at the developer, posted the announcement on the game's website, explaining that more work was required to prepare the title's backend services.

"Part of what makes Battlefield: Heroes unique is that it is equal parts game and website," explained Salt. "On the game side, we've been listening to feedback from the lucky beta people, who have been a tremendous help to us in balancing the gameplay, squashing bugs and improving the overall quality of the game."

"We have also been working hard on the parts of the beta that aren't the game," he added. "There's the 10 per cent game part you can see, and the hiding 90 per cent is what we call the 'backend'."

"On Friday evening we will be closing down the current closed beta and moving our focus to polishing the backend. So for a while there will be no closed beta available to play. We expect to re-open the beta early next year."

This comes after Dice's executive producer Ben Cousins told GamesIndustry.biz, last August, that Battlefield Heroes was effectively "already out" and that the developer was planning on expanding the beta.