Blizzard Entertainment announced Friday that its launch of Diablo III has been pushed to early 2012, quashing gamers’ hopes that they might get the new game in time for the holidays.

Diablo III is the latest installment of Blizzard’s action role playing game series, in development for Windows and OS X. The game has been in development for several years, but only this week began a large scale closed beta test.

“With every game we make, the temptation is always very strong to launch as soon as possible. However, we didn’t put so many years of work into Diablo III to release a game that was almost ready,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment.

Morhaime added that the beta test is “going very well,” and that Blizzard will use the extra time afforded by the schedule to “deliver an experience that lives up to our vision for the game and the expectations of our players.”

Blizzard plans to add more testers than initially projected, as well. Players with active Battle.net accounts can opt in for a chance to participate in a future test phase.