2020's biggest games face delays, but it's probably a good thing

Barely a few weeks in 2020 and already the mantra in the gaming community is 'it's okay to delay, so everyone's doing it'.

Yes, it's looking like a year of waiting for some of this year's most anticipated game releases, with Cyberpunk 2077, Marvel's Iron Man VR, DOOM Eternal, The Last of Us Part II, Final Fantasy VII remake, Avengers, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Dying Light 2 all being shunted back.

But it's not necessarily a bad thing, because a longer wait time could mean that the game developers have more time to get things right (after all, who wants a lagging game full of bugs…)

The creators behind Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red, posted a statement last week saying that it won't meet the April release deadline, which means they've moved the launch date back to September 17, 2020.

CD Projekt Red's Marcin Iwiński and Adam Badowski write, "We are currently at a stage where the game is complete and playable, but there's still work to be done. Night City is massive – full of stories, content and places to visit, but due to the sheer scale and complexity of it all, we need more time to finish playtesting, fixing, and polishing.

"We want Cyberpunk 2077 to be our crowning achievement for the generation and postponing launch will give us the precious months we need to make the game perfect.

It's a similar story from the folks at game studio Camouflaj, who are working on Marvel's Iron Man VR.

"In order to deliver on our vision and meet the high expectations of our amazing community, we've made the difficult decision to move Marvel's Iron Man VR to a May 15, 2020 release. We truly appreciate your patience and understanding.

But that's not all. We won't quote every developer's reasons, but it's fair to say that they all need more time to develop the games.

DOOM Eternal was supposed to come out last November, but it will now be released on March 20, says Bethesda.

Next, the remake of Final Fantasy VIIis now slated for an April release, according to developer Square Enix.

February was supposed to mark the launch of The Last of Us Part II, but that has been pushed back to May, according to Naughty Dog.

Marvel's Avengers now comes out on September 4, according to developer Crystal Dynamics.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 was supposed to come out sometime during the first quarter of the year, but developer Hardsuit Labs continue to work on it for release sometime in late 2020 (date not specified).

Watch Dogs: Legion looked set for launch in March this year, but you can probably guess the story by now – that has also been delayed to sometime during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, according to Ubisoft (not very helpful, we know).

The developer of Dying Light 2, Techland, has pushed back the release so far that it won't specify a new launch date.

So, that old saying that patience is a virtue will surely be a useful way to deal with the anticipation in what's going to be a huge year in gaming.