Sony has announced on the PlayStation Blog that The Last Guardian has been pushed back to late 2016.
The Last Guardian release date suffers delay, but it’ll still be in your Christmas stocking
Fortunately, the hotly anticipated action-adventure title will still make it out this year, with the game now due out on December 7 in Europe and December 9 in the U.K. and Ireland. The game hits North America on December 6.
Shuhei Yoshida, head of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) Worldwide Studios, posted an update on The Last Guardian explaining the delay.
“Fumito Ueda, gen DESIGN and JAPAN Studio have a wonderful vision for The Last Guardian’s touching, emotional journey of friendship and trust, and we want to deliver the most polished experience possible for our fans who have supported us for so long.
“A delay is a difficult decision, particularly with this game, but we have encountered more bugs than anticipated while in the final stages of development. To ensure that The Last Guardian delivers on the experience that the game’s creators have envisioned, we need to take the extra time to work on those issues.”
The Last Guardian was originally pencilled in for an October 25, 2016 worldwide release. The game has suffered from a problematic and arduous development cycle, having first been unveiled for the PS3 back in 2009.
However, after numerous production issues, Sony confirmed at E3 2015 that the project had skipped a generation and would now come to the PS4. The Last Guardian will be creator Fumito Ueda’s first major videogame since the release of Shadow of the Colossus back in 2006.