The new tactical alien-blasting strategy game from X-COM’s original designer has been a long time coming. And now that the Phoenix Point release date has been delayed – again – it’s going to be a good while coming still. The game’s dropping from a release date just over a month from now all the way to the end of the year – but some players will have something to do on that original launch date.

Phoenix Point will now launch in December 2019, but we don’t have a specific date yet. On the original launch date of September 3, Backer Build 5 will launch for early supporters.

“We know this is not our first delay,” the developers say in the official announcement, “and we are very sorry to the fans who we know are highly anticipating getting their hands on Phoenix Point. No one is more disappointed than we are, but we collectively agree that we would rather miss a launch date than ship something that does not meet our exacting standards. We want the Phoenix Point you play to be one of your favorite games of all time, and that means we need a bit more time.”

Phoenix Point is an Epic exclusive, though notably it’s also scheduled to launch on Xbox Game Pass for PC alongside the Epic store version.

Weirdly, this is the second Epic exclusive throwback to a retro PC favourite that’s gotten delayed to December in the past week, as the MechWarrior 5 release date suffered the same fate. It’ll be a stacked holiday for Epic users, at least.