A little bit of sad news for those looking forward to it, but The Last of Us Part II has been officially delayed. As posted over at the
Official PlayStation Blog By Neil Druckmann:
To our fans,
Let me cut to the chase and get the news out of the way. The Last of Us Part II has a new release date of May 29, 2020.
I know. It was just about a month ago when we had our big blowout for
the game, letting media play over two hours of it along with debuting
our new story trailer and revealing the release date. The positive
response we saw from our community was overwhelming. You can feel the
energy among the team members. After working on something for so many
years, it’s invigorating to get a glimpse of validation for all the hard
work.
However, it was during the last few weeks, as we were closing out
sections of the game, that we realized 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,
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.
We hope you understand that this additional time ensures that The
Last of Us Part II lives up to our collective ambition as well as our
commitment to the highest level of quality. We know the extra few months
will add to what may already be an excruciating wait for all of us. We
are grateful for your patience and continued support. Come next May, you
will finally rejoin Ellie in The Last of Us Part II.
-Neil
It's really too bad, but at the same time this can be a good thing. When games are rushed problems tend to occur, so it's understandable that Naughty Dog would want to take a few extra months to make sure everything is as it should be. Hopefully they'll make good on their promise, and give us a game that was well worth waiting for.