The Last of Us Part II director discusses latest delay

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, last week Sony Interactive Entertainment made the decision to delay The Last of Us Part II once again. While the game is almost finished, no new release date has been set, but we have been given some extra insight into the situation thanks to Naughty Dog director, Neil Druckmann.

On the latest PlayStation Blogcast, Neil Druckmann was a guest and discussed how things are going at Naughty Dog during this current lockdown with everyone working from home. Importantly, employees were told to take time off if they needed it and to ensure the health of themselves and family, even if that meant that a delay in the game’s release may occur. This is worthy of note as Naughty Dog has come under fire again recently due to lengthy crunch periods during development.

Druckmann was asked about the possibility of releasing the game on time digitally, but that would be unfair to a large portion of customers who either need to rely on physical copies of games in order to play them, or simply prefer owning a physical disc.

At the moment, The Last of Us Part II is close to being completely finished, with just final bugs being worked through. No public demo was planned for the game and creating demos tends to take a lot of work, so it is unlikely that fans will get one prior to the game’s new release date, which still needs to be set.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: There are some interesting details here. It is a shame that the game has been delayed despite developers likely being able to meet the release date, but with the current situation, it is understandable. Part of this might be simply to stop large numbers of people getting early copies, as we saw with Final Fantasy VII Remake, which was being sold up to two weeks early at some stores.

Become a Patron!