It’s about time. Speaking in a just-wrapped up conference call, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime confirmed that the long-awaited closed beta for RTS sequel StarCraft II will launch sometime later this month.

While Blizzard’s shaky track record with committing to release dates doesn’t exactly instill confidence in us, recall that screenshots of the revamped Battle.Net interface went up recently. We have faith that it’s nearly ready for prime time.

Blizzard will invite an unspecified number of fans to give the beta a spin. First dibs will likely be given to those who opted in to participate last May. Development on the final product is expected to wrap up in the latter half of this year.

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