Excited about the sequel to real-time strategy classic StarCraft? We’re willing to bet you’re not alone, but apparently we’ll all have to wait a bit before we get our paws on Blizzard’s hugely anticipated follow-up. Chatting to MSNBC, Blizzard’s VP of game design Rob Pardo has said that the game, which has been in development since 2003, will "definitely not" be released this year. Boo, hiss.

"The only thing I can give you [that’s] concrete is it’s not going to be this year," said Pardo, shattering fanboy hearts. "Some people were hoping, because of how advanced the game looks, that we’d have it out by Christmas, but that’s definitely not happening."

In other words, development of StarCraft II will now stretch into a fifth year, but the lengthy development cycle is not something that concerns Pardo. "Different companies have different philosophies on how long they spend on products," he explained.

"I think we… have smaller development teams than other companies in the industry, and that turns into longer development cycles. We’re very iterative in our approach to game development. We can really look at the game and make really big decisions on redoing whole aspects of the game."

Pardo also revealed that keeping the title’s development a secret for so long proved to be challenging, and required the careful co-operation of all those involved. "We keep games under code names and we teach developers to refer to games by their code name," he said.

"And we’re just really careful about talking about the game internally. We don’t bring external folks through unannounced product areas. But I think even I’m surprised that we were able to keep it under wraps all the way to the end."