Naughty Dog have delayed The Last of Us Part II, to ensure all players can play the game at the same time, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Originally the release date was slated as May 29th (which had already been delayed from February 21st). However, Naughty Dog have issued the following statement on their official website and Twitter.
“As you’ve likely just seen, the release of The Last of Us Part II has been delayed. We’re sure this news is just as disappointing to you as it is to us. We wanted to reach out to all of you in our community to give you a little more information.
The good news is, we’re nearly done with development of The Last of Us Part II. We are in the midst of fixing our final bugs.
However, even with us finishing the game, we were faced with the reality that due to logistics beyond our control, we couldn’t launch The Last of Us Part II to our satisfaction. We want to make sure everyone gets to play The Last of Us Part II around the same time, ensuring that we’re doing everything possible to preserve the best experience for everyone. This meant delaying the game until such a time where we can solve these logistic issues.
We were bummed about this decision but ultimately understood it’s what’s best and fair to all of our players. We’re hoping that this won’t be a long delay and we’ll update you as soon as we have new information to share.”
As can be seen above, no new release date has been announced. For comparison, Final Fantasy VII Remake launched “far earlier” in Europe and Australia to counter-act the issues caused by the pandemic.
In a joint statement of Producer Yoshinori Kitase, and Director Tetsuya Nomura, both asked players not to spoil the game, should they get it early. In earlier news, Square Enix stated that some may not get the game on launch day.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord also entered Early Access sooner than planned due to the pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic (also known as COVID-19 officially, or Chinese Flu to others) has affected many worldwide, from businesses to public gatherings and events. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. This includes the postponement of GDC, and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, along with the cancellation of E3 2020, and Comiket 98.
The Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering are mapping the virus’ spread [1, 2]. As of this time of writing, there have been over 998,000 total confirmed cases worldwide, and over 738,000 active cases. There have been over 51,000 deaths, however over 208,000 people have made a “total recovery.”
The Last of Us Part II is coming soon to PlayStation 4.
Image: PlayStation
