Games all over the place have been hit with delays and setbacks all the time. Even big titles that are suppose to come out at the end of this year, including: Star Fox Zero, Persona 5, the next Legend of Zelda, Mighty No. 9, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and so much more. The main reason for these delays are usually due to the development team either not feeling confident with the current build of the game or the game has had a run in with extreme levels of bugs that need to be dealt with. According to interviews to MCV from QA managers, major games are anticipated to have some horribly buggy releases this holiday season. A statement by Pole to Win localization director Chris Rowley was as follows:
The run up to this Christmas will be no different to the last one, console games are expensive to develop, so missing a street date is not an acceptable situation to a publisher. Day One patches have become the norm over the last few years to try and address this, but the reality is that it often takes several patches where a title is significantly behind schedule.
The rush that publishers impose on games is understandable but it does hinder the integrity of some games. It’s because of that, publishers add pressure to QA to work harder to make sure the game is as bug-free as possible for its release. Universally Speaking’s QA manager James Cubitt weighs in on the issue and mentions that while publishers are improving when it comes to this issue, it is by no means good enough.
It is getting better, but far from solved. People need to stop seeing delays as a bad thing, both companies and the user base. The number of companies that just squeeze QA testing into the remaining period, without sufficient time to then fix the issues and re-test, is hurting their own titles in the long run.
While games are getting backlash for being forced back to 2016 as opposed to this holiday season, you can at least appreciate that publishers and development team that have been delaying their game are actively trying to make their product the best it could possibly be. It’s an issue that is difficult to manage especially when publishers get pressured by the time constraints placed by share holders and profitability. So expect some triple A titles to have some buggy releases, hopefully it won’t be egregious and will at least be fixed as soon as possible.