Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End may as well be subtitled The Shifting Schedule by now as Naughty Dog has once again adjusted the title’s release date.
Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, the Creative Director and Game Director at Naughty Dog, recently made an announcement about A Thief’s End on PlayStation’s Blog. They explain:
“Let’s start with the good news: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is wrapping up production and is shaping up to be the proper send off for Nathan Drake that we’ve promised you. The bad news is that we need a bit more time to finish the game so that it meets our standards and vision. Let’s cut to the chase, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End has a new release date in North America of April 26, 2016.”
The latest Uncharted has been knowingly in development since 2013 with a trailer that came out November 14th of that year. This game was originally going to come out this year, but got delayed to March 18, 2016 about nine months ago. Since then, many changes in staff have lead to numerous setbacks for Drake’s fourth main adventure. The most notable of which was when Druckmann and Straley replaced Amy Hennig and Justin Richmond as directors, leading to the abandonment of eight month’s worth of content.
Druckmann and Straley continue on the blog post, mentioning hurdles that are causing the delay:
“This is our largest Uncharted game to date, and the team has been working incredibly hard to meet the challenge of closing out the game’s development in a timely manner. However, as we approached our final deadlines and started wrapping up the game’s levels, we realized that several key sequences needed extra resources to bring them to the finish line. After carefully considering all of our options, we decided to extend our schedule, making sure that we get a few more polish passes before submitting our gold master (the final disc for manufacturing).”
Earlier this month, Naughty Dog released a multiplayer Beta for Uncharted 4, which was well-received. Plans for a March release has been claimed as late as the PlayStation Experience of this year. Despite how slight it may be, Naughty Dog adjusting the release date of their next big game does exemplify the difficulties of AAA game development.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is a PlayStation 4 exclusive and will (hopefully) be out April 26, 2016.
