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The Last Of Us 2 Release Officially Delayed Until May 2020

Following reports that The Last of Us Part 2 will no longer launch on 21st February next year, as originally announced, Naughty Dog has made the delay official, confirming that its highly anticipated PS4 sequel will now launch on 29th May.

In a letter to fans from game director Neil Druckmann, a new release date of May 29, 2020 was confirmed for The Last of Us Part 2. The news is unexpected after all, the long-awaited release date announcement came less than a month ago and pegged the game as coming to PS4 on February 21, 2020. This three-month delay comes seemingly out of nowhere.

The Last of Us Part II has a new release date. Here’s a letter to our fans. Apologies for the delay. Please know we’re working very hard to make it worthwhile. https://t.co/iJyhXpuUoa — Neil Druckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) October 24, 2019

Given all the hype around last month’s event, it’s a little surprising that Sony or Naughty Dog have already decided to turn around and put the brakes on the launch. That said, delays like this aren’t uncommon whatsoever in the industry. Indeed, Naughty Dog’s own Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End was pushed back multiple times before it arrived in May of 2016. Probably in large part because of those multiple delays, Naughty Dog was much quieter about work on The Last of Us Part II prior to the release date announcement and trailer last month, Naughty Dog hadn’t shown anything new about the game since E3 2018.

The post clarifies that there is a new release date of May 29, 2020, apologizing for the delay while defending the decision to prioritize game quality over a punctual launch: “However, it was during the last few weeks, as we were closing out sections of the game, that 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.”

Druckmann added that “At this point we were faced with two options: compromise parts of the game or get more time. We went with the latter, and this new release date allows us to finish everything to our level of satisfaction while also reducing stress on the team.”

Delivering a quality game

The move makes sense given the ambition of the The Last of Us Part 2, which Naughty Dog is hoping will recreate the original game’s complex human characters with improved mechanics, enemies with unique heartbeats, and AI allies with more autonomy and capability than before.

This isn’t the first time a massive AAA game was pushed back later than hoped; it happened most recently with Doom Eternal, which is now expected to launch in March 2020 instead of the original November launch date.

The Last of Us Part 2 is one of the most anticipated PS4 games of recent times. As a sequel to the critically acclaimed The Last of Us on PS3, and an exclusive to the PlayStation platform, it will almost certainly be a big seller for Sony and help to shift those soon-defunct PlayStation 4 consoles with the next-gen PS5 on the way.

The release date and Outbreak Day festivities were accompanied by loads of new details, including some from our own hands-on time. Among them was the revelation that The Last of Us Part 2 will no longer have multiplayer, though Naughty Dog says a separate online experience is in the works. There was no word about that in the latest announcement, nor whether there are any plans for a PS5 version of The Last of Us 2, given the shortened window between the two releases.

Sony and Naughty Dog have confirmed The Last of Us Part II will now launch on May 29th, 2020.