• Posted February 13th, 2013 at 16:41 EDT by Ernest Lin
• 5 Comments

Naughty Dog has confirmed that The Last of Us will receive a 5-week delay for additional polishing. The highly-anticipated zombie survival game will be released in North America and Europe on June 14 - the day after E3 2013 - rather than the originally scheduled May 7.

Naughty Dog's Creative Director Neil Druckmann released a statement on the PlayStation Blog explaining the reason for the delay:

"The Last of Us is an ambitious project. In many ways it may be Naughty Dog’s most ambitious project to date – brand new universe and cast of characters, brand new tech, brand new genre, not to mention it’s easily the longest campaign Naughty Dog has ever made.

As we entered the final phase of development for The Last of Us, we came to realize just how massive Joel and Ellie’s journey is. But instead of cutting corners or compromising our vision, we came to the tough decision that the game deserved a few extra weeks to ensure every detail of The Last of Us was up to Naughty Dog’s internal high standards."

Naughty Dog Co-President Christophe Balestra echoed these sentiments on Twitter, where he explained, "We need more time to polish and deliver a game to the quality you expect."

Waiting isn't fun, but neither is an unpolished game. We wish Naughty Dog all the best with finishing up The Last of Us and raising the industry bar for story, graphics, and gameplay. While you wait to deliver Joel and Ellie through the apocalypse, check our our hands-on preview and image gallery. Then, sound off in the comments below if the delay has you reeling.