Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to 2014's Shadow of Mordor, has been delayed from its intended August release date. The follow-up will now launch worldwide on October 10, 2017.

In a blog post, developer Monolith stated the reason for the delay was to ensure Shadow of War delivers "the highest quality experience."

"Middle-earth: Shadow of War expands gameplay in every dimension, including the massive open world, the story, the RPG systems, and personal player stories of the Nemesis System," the developer said. "As with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Monolith is committed to delivering the highest quality experience. In order to do this, we have made the difficult decision to move our launch date to ensure that Middle-earth: Shadow of War will deliver on that promise.

"We understand that it might be disappointing to have to wait a little longer for the release and are sorry for the delay, but we are working hard to make an amazing game. We're excited to show more at E3."

The open-world game was originally slated to launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on August 22 in North America. Today's announcement therefore represents a delay of almost two months. Although the new October date applies "worldwide," Monolith stated in its blog post that Australia and New Zealand's release dates may vary.

The developer recently said that the title, which is set in the same universe as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, will not be coming to Nintendo Switch. For more on Shadow of War, read our recent preview here, or some new fort assault gameplay here.