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Cryptic's Champions Online delayed to September

New MMO delayed from original July release date over quality concerns

City of Heroes creator Cryptic Studios has announced that its upcoming MMORPG Champions Online has been delayed seven weeks over quality concerns.

The title has been pushed back from its original July 14 launch to September 1, and according to design director and executive producer Bill Roper, the game has been delayed for the sake of polish.

"It is critically important for an MMO to be as good as it possibly can be at launch," said Roper. "Through our constant dialogue with our vocal and supportive community of beta testers, we quickly realised that in order to implement certain features that we all considered important the development of Champions Online would require more time. So that's what we're going to give it."

"Cryptic has a proven track record of releasing solid games and we want to maintain that with Champions Online," he added.

Champions Online was first announced by Cryptic and then-publisher Take-Two in February of 2008. A closed beta of the game has been running since October of 2008. In December Cryptic Studios was acquired by Atari, causing Take-Two to drop the game from its release schedule.