The Last of Us Part II will not be hitting its May 29 release on PlayStation 4, as announced today.
The announcement came on the Playstation Twitter, saying, “SIE has made the difficult decision to delay the launch of The Last of Us Part II and Marvel’s Iron Man VR until further notice.” They go on to cite the current coronavirus pandemic as the reason for the delay.
Naughty Dog released its own statement on Twitter as well, expressing their own disappointment in the delay and that the current global situation prevented them from releasing the game in the way that they wanted.
Originally set for release on Feb. 22, 2020, the game was then delayed a few months to May 29. As for the reason for the first delay, Neil Druckmann explained, “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.”
The game was supposed to have its first public hands-on experience at PAX East 2020, but after concerns over COIVD-19 began to rise, Sony decided to pull out of the event.
Now, we have an indefinite delay, which isn’t too much of a shock, given the number of games that have been affected by the current crisis. On Monday, Square Enix said it would be shipping copies of Final Fantasy VII Remake early to Europe and Australia, and to other Western regions “this week” in order to reach its April 10 release date.
We are sure as the world starts to gain some control over the pandemic, more information will come out for a new release date. If anything, we can hopefully look forward to more information about the recently-announced The Last of Us television series.
