Hearthstone open beta pushed back

The anticipated open beta phase of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has been pushed back a few weeks according to Blizzard (and they should know).

In a post on Battle.net, production director Jason Chayes explained that the move was to ensure the quality of the final product: "we've been making great progress on improving server stability, but there are still a few things that have come up that we want to fix before we leave the closed beta phase."

"We believe the right thing to do for the game is to not rush it out into open beta," he continued, "but to instead hold onto it a little longer to make sure it's ready for wider testing. At BlizzCon, we mentioned that we hoped to get the game into a state where it's ready for open beta this month, but we're just not quite there yet."

"The development team has been working hard to get this out before the end of the year, but our highest priority is that Hearthstone has an awesome launch when all gates are lifted and everyone can download it and play at the same time. We're close to the open beta-very close."

You can head this way to apply for a place on the closed beta if you can't wait for it to open up. Everyone who opted in before December 16 should have now been invited, while new opt-ins end on January 7. You can read our preview of the card game here.