Mighty No. 9, tagged as the spiritual successor to the massively popular side-scrolling action franchise Mega Man, has long been delayed. Since launching one of the most successful Kickstarter campaign for video games, the release of the title has been pushed back three times, with the latest delay announced in January just two weeks before its supposed release date of Feb. 9.
Fans of Keiji Inafune, the creator of Mega Man who is also leading the Mighty No. 9 project, would understandably be concerned now, with questions on whether the game will ever be released at all. A message from the game developer, however, looks to finally signal an end to the wait.
Posted on the official Mighty No. 9 website, Inafune began his message with an apology to all the gamers who have been kept waiting for the game's launch.
Afterward, Inafune revealed what would hopefully be the definite release date for the game's PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, which would be June 21 in North America and Asia and June 24 for the rest of the world.
The portable versions of the title, which will be for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, will be released at a later point, though no definite date was mentioned.
Gamers would probably be skeptical of the said dates, given the three delays that the title has already undergone. However, Inafune assured that with Mighty No. 9 having "gone gold," the game is in the last stages before being released, and that the launch dates mentioned are "set in stone."
Inafune promises no more delays for Mighty No. 9, which, if true, would definitely be good news for a game that has been highly anticipated since its Kickstart campaign launched almost three years ago.
According to developers, the delays of the game were due to issues in the implementation of a multiplayer mode and the online leaderboard features. Gamers have said that it would be fine for these features to have been left off to launch the title as soon as possible, and then have the features added through a patch later, but the developers insisted that they should be included in Mighty No. 9's initial release.
Mighty No. 9 was able to raise $3,845,170 in its Kickstarter campaign, smashing its goal of $900,000. With donations totalling $186,380 sent to its Paypal account, the fundraising was able to break through its final goal of $4,000,000, which unlocks the online battle race mode.
