Making a video game is not easy. Even if development goes smoothly, a team can spend months of work just getting the game up and running, much less finished - and, more often than not, things don't go smoothly.
As video games get bigger and bigger, delays are becoming more and more prevalent. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a perfect example of this: originally announced back in 2013 as the Wii U's first Zelda game, Breath of the Wild has been delayed so many times that it's basically missed the entire console life cycle.
Not only that, but Breath of the Wild is hardly the first Zelda game to miss its original release date: Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were all delayed at one point or another.
How is it possible that, with a company as big as Nintendo, a game like The Legend of Zelda could be delayed? According to the series' creators, it's not because of bugs or glitches - rather, Nintendo seems to bite off a bit more than it can chew on a regular basis.
Thankfully, there are signs that preemptive release dates won't be around for too much longer. At E3 2015, Bethesda confirmed that Fallout 4 would be releasing just three months after it was first announced, and many of the games shown at Sony's E3 2016 press conference were never given any sort of release window.
Who knows - maybe someday, Nintendo won't be forced to give itself impossible deadlines.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is scheduled to launch alongside Nintendo's new NX console sometime early next year.
