UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF'S END Delayed Until Spring of 2016
Disappointing news for fans of the Uncharted franchise: Naughty Dog has delayed Uncharted 4: A Thief's End until an unspecified Spring 2016 release. After showing off its first trailer about nine months ago, and then a gameplay video earlier this year, the PS4 exclusive was supposed to be ready by the end of 2015, but Naughty Dog's creative director Neil Druckmann took to the PlayStation blog to break the bad news to the fans:
“Since we showed you our first gameplay reveal of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, more of the game and story have come together, and it’s become clear to us that this game is much more ambitious than we originally envisioned. After spending so many years with Nathan Drake, he means a lot to the team, and telling the climactic chapter of his adventures is a task we don’t take lightly — this game deserves every bit of the attention to detail, precise pacing, and nuanced storytelling Naughty Dog is known for. So we’ve made the difficult choice of pushing the game’s release date. Giving us a few extra months will make certain that Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End not only meets the team’s high standards, but the high standards that gamers have come to expect from a Naughty Dog title."
“Thank you for your patience — we know the extra wait will be excruciating, but you’ll see it will be worth it as we reveal more about Uncharted 4 over the next year. The team at Naughty Dog will be heads down working through 2015 making sure that Nathan Drake’s story gets the closure it deserves. Come Spring 2016, you and Nate are in for one thrilling, emotional ride.”
As a massive fan of the Uncharted franchise, this news sucks - but at the same time, it's probably best in the long run that the developers have enough time to craft the game they want to make instead of having to race to hit an arbitrary release date. It's that kind of mentality that forces people to release games that aren't ready, leading to some big problems in the industry. The only silver lining to this is a selfish one: the delay will hopefully allow me to scrape together enough money to buy a PS4 before the game is released so I can play it along with everyone else.