UPDATE 5.59pm: Following reports that The Last of Part 2 will no longer launch on 21st February next year, as originally announced, Naughty Dog has made the delay official, confirming that its highly anticipated PS4 sequel will now launch on 29th May.
Announcing the news via the PlayStation Blog, The Last of Us Part 2’s director Neil Druckmann explained the reason for delay. “During the last few weeks, as we were closing out sections of the game,” he wrote, “we realised we simply didn’t have enough time to bring the entire game up to a level of polish we would call Naughty Dog quality.
“At this point we were faced with two options: compromise parts of the game or get more time. We went with the latter, and this new release date allows us to finish everything to our level of satisfaction while also reducing stress on the team.”
“While we’re relieved that we won’t have to compromise our vision,” Druckmann concluded, “we’re disappointed that we weren’t able to avoid this exact situation. We wish we could’ve foreseen the amount of polish we needed, but the size and scope of this game got the better of us. We hate disappointing our fans and for that we’re sorry.”
ORIGINAL STORY 3.59pm: Sony has delayed The Last of Us 2 to spring 2020, according to a new report.
Kotaku reported the delay of Naughty Dog’s next. Sony is expected to make an announcement this week.
Word of a delay comes just a month after Sony announced a firm 21st February 2020 release date for The Last of Us 2.
According to a tweet from video game analyst Daniel Ahmad, The Last of Us 2 will now launch at the end of May 2020.
Jason Schreier, author of the Kotaku report, took to Twitter to say fellow-PS4 exclusive Ghost of Tsushima is bumped later into 2020 to account for the delay of The Last of Us 2. Sucker Punch’s upcoming game was originally planned for the first half of 2020, and remains a PS4 game, despite running up against the release of PS5 in time for next Christmas.
BTW, Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t have a public release date yet, but it’ll also be bumped later into 2020 to account for this delay. Don’t expect them to suddenly turn it into a PS5 game or anything, but it was originally planned for the first half of the year – not anymore
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) October 24, 2019
For more, check out our Martin’s The Last of Us 2 hands-on preview from September, and his interview with the writer of the game.
