Auto Assault caught in traffic

Extremely promising massively-multiplayer car-combat title Auto Assault won't be released until spring 2006 at the earliest, publisher NCsoft and developer NetDevil have confirmed.

Speaking in an official forum post since confirmed by NCsoft, NetDevil producer Steven Snow said: "The beta testing period has spawned some great ideas that we want to include before launch.

"NetDevil and NCsoft are both companies with a strong commitment to releasing 'only when it's ready,' so we want to extend the beta into the spring of 2006."

Realistically, that could mean later than spring, but either way it seems certain that you won't be able to buy the game from your local games shop until at least then.

Snow also said that the team would "continue tuning, tweaking, and adding to Auto Assault," and went on to list a number of things NetDevil's focusing on, including more content and better level progression and character creation, better client performance, and more.

Ending on a note about the ongoing beta test, Snow indicated that more testers would be sought in a little while, noting, "more invites will go out once the next round of content revisions is published later this fall. European beta invites will continue to be sent, but the majority will be issued to coincide with the roll-out of the new content."

We've been giving Auto Assault quite a lot of room to manoeuvre, as you may have spotted - with previews and several interviews as part of a lengthy Q&A series with NetDevil's president Scott Brown. All of which is accessible elsewhere on the site.