Another day, another delay. All the next-gen games we’re looking forward to are missing their release dates and we’re panicing that there could be more to come.
It’s a worrying trend when a whole stack of video games you’re expecting this year – many of which first appeared at E3 almost a year ago – continue to miss their projected release dates. We bought in to the next-gen dream over six months ago expecting a lot more choice than we’re currently facing at the end of 2014.
What the hell’s going on?
Here we present the most disappointing delays to hit in the past months, and why we think Activision’s Destiny could be next to shift release dates.
Delayed until 2015
The Order: 1886
Ready At Dawn’s third-person cover shooter simply isn’t ready for its projected Christmas 2014 release date and the developer has been pretty open about that.
What they said: “We have an open discussion with Sony all the time. We said, ‘Look, we can achieve the quality you expect everywhere, but delivering on this is going to take a few more months.”
What we say: We suspect the gameplay has come second in the development process to the cinematic presentation and motion capture which have been this games’ selling points. A pretty game will only keep the attention for so long, a bad game is bad forever.
Expected release: A format exclusive needs to be as perfect as possible if it’s to get the full spend of Sony’s marketing budget behind it. Look for it beyond March 2015, perhaps closer to May.
The Elder Scrolls Online
The Elder Scrolls Online was so, so close to releasing in June on PS4 and Xbox One that we could smell the Atronach sulphur. But after the lukewarm launch of the PC version Zenimax Online has decided to hold it back, suggesting the new consoles are harder to work with than originally expected.
What they said: “Integrating our systems with each console manufacturer’s networks — which are both different from the PC/Mac system as well as different from each other—has been a challenging process.”
What we say: You buy TESO and then you subscribe to play it. And if you’re on Xbox Live you have to pay for that too. And if you’ve already bought the game on PC you can upgrade to the console version for an extra $20. TESO is *expensive* and these payment options and disparity between consoles are probably holding it up more than anything.
Expected release: Zenimax reckons it needs “about six months” to get this right, but no one releases games in the dead zone straight after Xmas, so we’re looking at March at the earliest.
Tom Clancy’s The Division
First revealed at E3 2013 it seems an age since we had a proper Tom Clancy game. Now we just have to keep the faith and wait for a release some time in 2015, hopefully.
What they said: “We don’t want to compromise on quality. We are going to release the game when it’s ready.”
What we say: There are rumours The Division isn’t going to make next year. That wouldn’t surprise us either. Ubisoft needs to get this right if it’s to challenge the dominance of Battlefield and Call of Duty, both of which are reinventing themselves in 2014. But Ubi can afford to take its time, it has blockbusters that are clearly paying the bills.
Expected release: Sometime in 2016.
On to page 2 for more horrible, cruel delays…
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