Despite getting delayed, Cryptic Studios has announced that their MMO Champions Online, which has been in closed beta for some time now, will be getting an open beta on August 17th.

This means that all who missed out on the closed beta will now be given a chance to get a taste of Champions Online.

Kotaku reports that those who were already in the closed beta will be given extended play time with the beta open for all from Friday morning, through the weekend, until Monday morning.

Cryptic Studios announced in late April that their newest MMO Champions Online would be shipping on July 14th. However, Cryptic has made the concious decision to delay the game until September 1st, but why?

Well, executive producer for the game, Bill Roper, gave the following reason:

Through our constant dialogue with our vocal and supportive community of beta testers, we quickly realized that in order to implement certain features that we all considered important the development of Champions Online would require more time

And, according to Joystiq, these features will include things like “more instanced and scripted missions” along with “core powers, travel powers and upgrades”.

Well OK Mr. Roper, let’s just hope you and Cryptic Studios deliver a great game.

"All I know is it’s coming out first on the PC," design director and Flagship Studios veteran Bill Roper told Eurogamer. "We really, really want to bring it out on console, the consoles are just hungry and perfect for an MMO, and we’ve done a lot of work to ensure that there’s nothing to prevent us from doing that…It’s an area beyond my control."

Champions Online was once scheduled for release this June, but has been pushed back to a vague spring timeframe. While the game has only been confirmed for PC and Xbox 360, publisher Atari lists it as coming to “consoles”, hence the PS3 speculation.

The studio is the creator of several popular MMORPGs, including City of Heroes and City of Villains. They are currently working on Champions Online and Star Trek Online, and todays announcement reveals a third, untitled project. This game is scheduled for 2011, following Champions Online in 2009 and Star Trek Online in 2010.

Infogrames has paid $26.7 million as part of the deal, with an additional $20 million in stock or cash for Cryptic if revenues of their games hit certain targets.

He will serve as design director on Champions Online, the studio’s new MMO superhero title based on the Champions role-playing game.

Roper had previously founded the ill-fated Flagship Studios, which produced only one notable game – Hellgate: London – which wasn’t well-received by critics and consumers alike.

Champions Online is in development for release next year.

Those wanting to don underpants on top of their pants can apply on the game’s official website. The beta is due to start in mid-November.

"This closed beta is an exciting step in the evolution of Champions Online," said Cryptic creative officer Jack Emmert. "All of us here in the Cryptic offices have been playing the game for a while now, and we’re excited to invite others in to have as much fun with Champions Online as we’ve been having internally."