If you thought September was the last month you'd have to wait until you will finally be able to play The Last Guardian, think again. The infamous piece of vaporware has become the latest victim of the "Year of Delays," with Sony announcing that the game has been pushed back from its October release date and will now arrive on Dec. 6.
The Last Guardian has had one of the most troubled stories in recent video game history. Initially revealed at E3 in 2009 as the brainchild of Fumito Ueda (the man behind Ico and Shadow of the Colossus) and Team Ico, the game was supposed to be released in 2011 as a PlayStation 3 exclusive. However, it has been beset with all sorts of issues since then, such as hardware difficulties that forced the game to be transitioned to the PlayStation 4, and Ueda leaving Sony. As a result, not much was heard about the game until 2015, when it was reintroduced at that year's E3.
Fortunately, this looks like it will be the final (and shortest) delay fans will have to deal with, as developers work out a few final kinks before it is ready to go gold.
"The Last Guardian development team is fast approaching major milestones in production and has made the tough decision to delay the release of The Last Guardian a few weeks," wrote SCE President Shuhei Yoshida in a blog post. "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," Yoshida continued. "Our development continues to push itself to the fullest and we look forward to revealing new content toward launch. We appreciate your continued support."
As stated before, this is merely the latest setback The Last Guardian is facing, as it has had many in the past. While the holdup isn't a particularly significant one, it does represent the latest delay in a year that has been noticeably full of them.
A few major titles that have been delayed this year thus far are Final Fantasy XV, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Scalebound, Crackdown 3 and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Similarly, there are plenty of niche titles that have suffered a similar fate, such as Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors, Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni and Atelier Firis (JP). Then, of course, there are the titles that were previously delayed but have since come out, such as Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and No Man's Sky.
In the meantime, The Last Guardian will (hopefully) grace the PlayStation 4 on Dec. 4. Let's just hope it's worth the wait.
