A few months back, we had a chat with Fishlabs CEO Michael Schade about the studio's upcoming sci-fi MMO Galaxy on Fire: Alliances.

Here's the video to prove it:

Anyhow, at the time of the interview, Schade said that the ambitious spin-off from the Galaxy on Fire space shooter series was on track to be released this November.

Unfortunately, we've just learned through our sister site PocketGamer.biz that Fishlabs has decided to extend the beta testing period into November. This means that we won't see Galaxy on Fire: Alliances on the App Store until early next year.

While this announcement might be a bit of a bummer for strategy fans, you should take solace in the knowledge that the closed beta is producing positive results.

According to the German developer, the average player is indulging in 14 play sessions per day. That's a pretty decent retention rate for a free-to-play game, so we guess it must be doing something right.

We'll let you know when we have a solid release date. In the meantime, we recommend you check out the exhaustive hands-on video above for a flavour of what to expect.