For the past two years, the world has been brought to its knees, many people have been left unable to work and others forced to work from home. Where this has had a positive impact on the gaming industry – increasing player counts, sales, and engagement – there have also been negatives. Game designers and entire teams have also been forced to work from home, leading to a large list of delays from multiple developers. Bungie delayed their new Destiny expansion, Warner Bros. delayed Gotham Knights, and some games have been rushed to completion and pushed out too early given the new challenges the pandemic brings like Cyberpunk 2077. Now, Deathloop is the latest to suffer this fate… again.
Arkane Studios has been affected by these very challenges, with their most recent title Deathloop, the PlayStation exclusive, as one of the last confirmed games to grace a PlayStation platform.
The Groundhog Day FPS action-adventure in which the player assumes the role of Colt, an assassin stranded in a time loop, waking up on a beach of the island Blackreef. While the inhabitants enjoy a never-ending party as at the end of each night, the day resets and none of the residents remember the previous loop, but Colt retains all his memories.
In a Twitter post, Arkane Lyon’s game director, Dinga Bakaba, and art director, Sebastien Mitton, issued a statement informing fans of the the delay and leaving the impression that it could be linked to the pandemic.
— DEATHLOOP (@deathloop) April 8, 2021
“We are committed to quality and preserving our team’s ambitions for Deathloop while ensuring the health and safety of everyone at Arkane Studios.”
The delay moves the game back from the initial date of May 21 to September 14. This marks the second delay of the title, Arkane reassures fans stating.
“We will be using this extra time to accomplish our goal: Create a fun, stylish, and mind-bending player experience.”
Deathloop was originally set to release in August 2020 with an exclusive deal with PlayStation before arriving on Xbox Game Pass which will now land late 2022 if the new release date holds.
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