Blizzard Delays WOW: Burning Crusade

World of Warcraft fans will have to wait until January to get their hands on the upcoming "Burning Crusade" expansion to the hugely popular online game.

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that the much-anticipated The Burning Crusade expansion to its popular World of Warcraft massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) will ship in January, 2007, rather than in time for the 2006 end-of-year holidays.

The expansion pack adds new races and territories to the online game, as well as enables players to create more powerful characters. Blizzard plans to use the delay to “further refine” the content of the game and extend its closed beta test. “We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and we’re excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content,” said Mike Morhaime, Blizzard president and co-founder. “We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve.”

World of Warcraft currently boasts more than six million players worldwide; The Burning Crusade is the first major revision to the game since it launched in 2004, and promises to make a variety of changes to the game rules, events, and milieu.

Blizzard has not released availability or pricing information for The Burning Crusade.