The Last of Us 2 is being delayed. Jason Schreier of Kotaku was the first to report the PS4 exclusive will be moved from the winter of 2020 until later in the spring.
Schreier said multiple sources confirmed the rumors to him. Shortly after the news broke, Sony said The Last of Us 2 was indeed getting pushed back.
The game’s director, Neil Druckman confirmed a new release date of May 29, 2020. The question now is just what could have happened in the last 30 days to warrant the delay.
It was just last month Sony finally told an anxious public The Last of Us Part 2 was coming in February. In a blog post, Druckman explained it had to do with what he was seeing in the quality.
We realized we simply didn’t have enough time to bring the entire game up to a level of polish we would call Naughty Dog quality.
Druckman also said the size and scope of The Last of Us Part 2 “got the better of us.” This as an explanation as to why the delay so soon after the initial release date reveal.
BTW, Ghost of Tsushima doesn't have a public release date yet, but it'll also be bumped later into 2020 to account for this delay. Don't expect them to suddenly turn it into a PS5 game or anything, but it was originally planned for the first half of the year – not anymore
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) October 24, 2019
The situation is a little different when it comes to Ghost of Tsushima. Sucker Punch’s latest project hasn’t gotten an official release date yet. In the same string of tweets where Schreier was talking about The Last of Us 2, he shed some light on Sony’s thinking on its other big exclusive.
The Kotaku editor says Ghost of Tsushima was planned for early in 2020. It appears that was going to be made official relatively soon.
He also made it clear he doesn’t believe Sony will be bumping either back to the point where they will be PS5 exclusives. Considering the new console is coming in the holiday season next year, one has to wonder if there’s a chance that could change as well.
Just how much further back Ghost of Tsushima gets moved because of this news is still anyone’s guess.