All Articles: The Last of Us Part II

Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II was already hit with a pretty significant delay once before (it was moved from February to May late last year), but now it’s been delayed again.

This time, publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment announced (via Twitter) that the game won’t be available as planned, and no new release date will be announced for the time being because “the global crisis is preventing us from providing the launch experience our players deserve.”

A followup message from Naughty Dog (also posted to Twitter) elaborated somewhat on Sony’s decision, stating that the delay is due to “logistics beyond our control.”

While neither entity is being particularly straightforward, the likeliest explanation is that coronavirus-fueled shipping disruptions and store closures have made it impossible to predict when enough copies of The Last of Us Part II can be delivered to meet the sure-to-be-massive demand.

In the same announcement, Sony confirmed that the slightly-lower-profile Iron Man VR will also miss its previously-announced Launch date of May 15. Like The Last of Us Part II, it too has been delayed indefinitely.

Sony and Naughty Dog recently announced a February 2020 release date for the highly-anticipated The Last of Us Part II, but here we are a month later, and the two companies have now been forced to delay the sequel. Though development is nearly complete, it looks like naughty Dog needs just a little bit to bring fans their uncompromised version of the game.

Game Director Neil Druckmann explained the catalyst for this sudden turn of events on the PlayStation Blog:

It was just about a month ago when we had our big blowout for the game, letting media play over two hours of it along with debuting our new story trailer and revealing the release date. The positive response we saw from our community was overwhelming. You can feel the energy among the team members. After working on something for so many years, it’s invigorating to get a glimpse of validation for all the hard work.

However, it was during the last few weeks, as we were closing out sections of the game, that we realized we simply didn’t have enough time to bring the entire game up to a level of polish we would call Naughty Dog quality. At this point we were faced with two options: compromise parts of the game or get more time. We went with the latter, and this new release date allows us to finish everything to our level of satisfaction while also reducing stress on the team.

Barring another delay, The Last of Us Part II will be released exclusively for the PS4 on May 29, 2020.

After nearly three years worth of teases and trailers, Sony and Naughty Dog have finally confirmed a launch date for The Last of Us Part II. The post-apocalyptic sequel will be released exclusively for the PS4 on February 21, 2020.

As part of today’s State of Play presentation, the publisher and developer also unveiled a brand new trailer for The Last of Us Part II, which reveals more about the game’s story, and a very-alive-looking Joel (so much for the “He’s a Voice in Ellie’s Head!” theory).

Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann also shared a bit about what this announcement means for everyone at Naughty Dog on the PlayStation Blog:

We began working on this game over five years ago. It’s hard to describe the immense pressure of following up the first game. We know how much you love this world and its characters — especially Ellie and Joel. Believe me, we’re fans as well. We love them. Which is why we spent years crafting a game that we feel will do them justice, telling a nuanced story that deals with the core question: how far would you go to exact justice against the people that hurt the ones you love?

It’s a highly emotional story with complex themes that befit the world of The Last of Us. What we realized pretty early on is that we were putting together Naughty Dog’s most ambitious and longest game in our 35 year history. To tell this kind of story the game needed to be massive. Without spoiling too much, at the top of this post you can watch the brand-new trailer that we debuted earlier today on State of Play, which just scratches the surface of what the game has in store.

More information about The Last of Us Part II will be revealed later this week on September 26, which is “the day the cordyceps fungus reached critical mass” (better known as “Outbreak Day”) in the game.