StarCraft: Ghost likely to slip to 2005

Vivendi Universal Games subsidiary Blizzard Interactive has announced that its headline title for this year, StarCraft: Ghost, will now fail to meet its planned release date - currently listed as Q4 2004 - as it has decided to hold the game back in development to ensure the quality of the product.

The title, which is the first action-adventure type game to be set in the StarCraft universe, is currently under development at Nihilistic Studios, and it seems likely that it will now not be launched until next year.

"We are very committed to StarCraft: Ghost as a major part of our line-up," according to Blizzard president Mike Morhaime. "As a result, we plan to build additional time into the schedule to polish the game until it meets the high standards that our customers have come to expect from Blizzard products."

"We are sorry to disappoint players with the delayed launch," he continued, "but are confident that we will deliver a great game with the additional development time."