The Last of Us 2 has been delayed “until further notice,” with Naughty Dog not setting a concrete release date in place for the game. Sony has also announced that Marvel’s Iron Man VR has also been delayed indefinitely.
Naughty Dog stated that “due to logistics beyond our control,” the game wouldn’t have launched in a manner that would have been to its satisfaction. The developer noted that it’s in the final stages of bug fixing, suggesting that the game is almost ready to roll out, but it seems that distribution issues have delayed it until further notice.
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In a statement posted to Twitter, Naughty Dog said that it wanted to make sure “everyone gets to play The Last of Us 2 around the same time,” suggesting that there was a possibility some regions would have had access to the game earlier than others. Considering that TLoU2 will be a narrative-driven game, the developer perhaps pushed its release date back to ensure that spoilers wouldn’t circulate online if one region had access before others.
A message from us about the delay of The Last of Us Part II: pic.twitter.com/aGsSRfmJ8a
— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) April 2, 2020
Though no firm release date has been set, Naughty Dog added that it hoped it wouldn’t be a long delay, noting that the studio would update fans as soon as it had more information to share. Sony added in its own tweeted statement that no further game delays were to be announced, with only The Last of Us 2 and Iron Man VR being affected.
Naughty Dog’s statement doesn’t mention the global pandemic specifically, but it’s highly likely that this delay is the result of distribution issues caused by the widespread lockdown many countries are facing. It’s unclear if the pandemic will wind up affecting more future game launches, but as The Last of Us 2 is one of the most high-profile releases of the year, this is a major move on Sony and Naughty Dog’s behalf.
