The Last of Us Part II game director Neil Druckmann is sheding some light on the recent delay of the title, caused by logistical issues due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, and added some details about the ongoing process of finding a new release date.
According to Druckmann, Naughty Dog and Sony have not ruled out a digital-only release for the much-anticipated action-adventure game, should it be an excellent way to bring the title in the hands of PS4 players. “There hasn’t been a final decision yet,” he told PlayStation Blogcast (via Reddit). “Right now we’re just reacting to different… You know… It’s a different retail chain… Whether like we can get physical copies to people… What is the internet infrastructure there to support in all countries…”.
“We’re right now looking at all sorts of options,” Druckmann, who also serves as Naughty Dog’s vice president, added. “What is the best way to get it to all of our fans as soon as possible, but that’s gonna take time for us to shift and figure things out and also see where the world is at. Things are changing from day to day.”
He addressed requests for a demo that could help people dispose of at least part of the disappointment for yet another The Last of Us Part II delay. But, according to Druckmann, the demo the press was shown last year is outdated now, and the game has made so much progress that it would not be a fair depiction of the state of development if offered the way it is.
On top of that, building a new demo would take time, and the developer prefers to spend the time on getting the game better and better, in particular when it comes to fixing bugs that are still being found during the QA process.
“Actually, when we did the press demo, we just had the whole game there on the disk, and we just cut out a piece, so people played that, but obviously you can’t do that when you ship it worldwide on the PSN,” he said. “It has to have way more safeguards put into place.
The Last of Us Part II was supposed to release on May 29, but has not been delayed “until further notice.” It doesn’t have a launch date nor window at the moment, and the title has been removed from the PlayStation Store.
While Sony has mentioned that outside of this and Marvel’s Iron Man VR, there are no other delays on sight, Ghost of Tsushima was also mentioned initially to be at risk; it’s still scheduled for June 26, though.
