As the end of what Bohemia Interactive describes as "what might be described as an eventful year" draws near, the Arma 3 developer has confirmed that its battlefield sim will miss the planned 2012 launch window. With two members of the team jailed on espionage charges and the project lead recently replaced, Bohemia has pushed Arma 3 into 2013 to finish it up properly.

"We've been in the process of implementing changes that will help us innovate as a studio under unexpected circumstances - facing problems we simply couldn't have imagined," new project lead Joris-Jan van 't Land said in today's announcement. "We're still trying to make sense of the situation and hope that our colleagues will be released soon. Although their plight has certainly affected us on a personal level, we continue working on the tasks identified as key to the release of Arma 3."

The two Czechs were arrested whilst holidaying on the Greek island of Lemnos, where Arma 3 is set. The Greek authorities have accused them of espionage, saying they broke laws against photographing military installations.

Bohemia's standalone version of smash-hit Arma 2 mod DayZ was still on track for a 2012 release as of November 30, according to creator Dean Hall on Twitter, who added this past Monday that he'll deliver a status update this week. "If the world ends before we get the DayZ release out I'm going to be pretty angry," he joked. Let's all hope that something somehow delays the apocalypse prophesied for December 21.