Warhammer Online delayed

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has been delayed in the US and Europe until Q1 2008, EA Mythic said yesterday, with the developer claiming its takeover by Electronic Arts is largely responsible - but not in a bad way.

"Since our acquisition by EA, we have been afforded many wonderful development opportunities and we plan to take full advantage of everything that is available. This includes taking several additional months to make the best MMORPG possible," Mythic's Mark Jacobs wrote in a community newsletter.

Jacobs says that while most of the work on the game's Dwarf and Greenskin zones is already complete, the team has decided to go back over that work and make some changes, implementing new ideas and lessons learned in the last nine months. "What has already emerged from this dedicated time of focused polish is nothing short of spectacular. In the Dwarf and Greenskin zones there is now more war, more Warhammer, and more of what makes WAR great," said Jacobs. The team is also now working on Empire and Chaos zones.

"By extending our development time, we'll be able to do these in-depth reviews several times prior to launch to ensure all areas of WAR benefit from the experience of ongoing development. EA is totally supportive of our decision and are behind us 100%. We all believe WAR will be the next great MMORPG and being part of EA affords us the time we need to make it so. It is EA's ongoing commitment to quality that will allow us, and other EA studios, to deliver great games, now and in the future," Jacobs added. While he admits that the delay is "probably not the news you were hoping to hear", he's confident that the team will eventually turn out "a truly great next-generation MMORPG" worthy of the Games Workshop name.

You can read the entire newsletter over on WarCry.com, or perhaps you'd like to read our Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning preview. We'll leave it with you.