Neil Druckmann Clarifies Delay Of The Last Of Us Part II
Here's what to expect in the future from Joel and Ellie.
We all know by this point that The Last of Us Part II has been delayed indefinitely for a number of reasons. One of the most obvious and understandable being the ongoing global situation, which has created problems for the physical distribution of the long awaited sequel. We also shouldn't hold our breath for a digital release either as Jason Schreier over at Kotaku explained:
Though the details from both Sony and even Neil Druckmann were vague to begin with, Druckmann has went into far greater detail on the most recent episode of the Sony Blogcast. Druckmann clarifies early on that the global standstill certainly played a part in the actual development being put on hold early on, detailing that he and the rest of the Naughty Dog team were essentially scrambling in order to make development of the game from home feasible - which he assures us now is the case. He also explains that this, coupled with other real world responsibilities such as having children whilst on lockdown, has made the situation even more difficult.
He was also careful to stress that the safety of Naughty Dog staff is their top priority saying: "Take time to take care of yourself, take time to be with your family... if we miss our date, we miss our date, we'll figure it out, but you come first... if you need to take a day or two off, do whatever you gotta do to take care of yourself, the game with be there."
We would be remiss if we failed to point out that this in stark contrast to the reports early last month of extended crunch at Naughty Dog in the run up to the May 29th launch date.
Druckmann then went on to vent his frustrations at the delay.
“You’re working on something for so long – some of us, for years – and there’s a built-in anticipation when you’re doing this thing. Like, you can't wait for this thing that you’ve been crafting and honing and sometimes dreaming about; you can’t wait to get it in people’s hands and then see their reactions. See what they like or didn’t like, or where the story takes them. And now you gotta put all that on hold because the world is conspiring against us!”
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