Which also, it turns out, means I won't have quite as long to wait for act two as those of you who bought the game when it came out in July. But if is right--and their evidence is practically unassailable--we'll all be waiting roughly a year and a half before we lay hands on StarCraft II: Heart of Swarm.

Battle.net director Greg Canessa may have spilled the beans while chatting up the online service's future at the game developers get-together that's been playing in Austin, Texas this week. While responding to a question about replays and profile updates, Canessa reportedly said they were "a main area of focus we're going to be seeing on the Starcraft side," adding, probably without thinking, "over the next 18 months between now and Heart of the Swarm."

Oops. Or maybe not. I'd rather know, wouldn't you?

18 months from now, counting this October, means March 2012, which if clocks in late next year, would make fiscal sense. Heart of the Swarm switches gears from Terran to Zerg singleplayer, and the Protoss finale, Legacy of the Void, should finish the trilogy up--who knows, maybe in 2014?

Blizzard's neither confirming nor denying the timeframe, they're just saying what you'd expect them to, that they haven't announced a release date yet. Given their tendency to do so last minute (World of Warcraft: Cataclysm didn't get its December 7 date ) I'd look for an official announcement somewhere around January 2012.