This Highly Anticipated PS5 Exclusive Just Got Delayed
2020 wasn't the only year of video game delays. Right out of the gate in 2021, Ubisoft announced that Riders Republic would be delayed, and Warner Bros. disappointed gamers worldwide when it revealed that Hogwarts Legacy and The Lord of the Rings: Gollum would have to stay in the game development oven until 2022. If you hoped that would be the end of game delays, you might want to stop reading to avoid finding out it's Returnal's turn to take some extra development time.
Recently, the official PlayStation Twitter account announced that Sony and developer Housemarque agreed to push Returnal's release date back from March 19 to April 30. The reason cited was "to give the team extra time to continue to polish the game to the level of quality players expect from Housemarque." While Housemarque isn't as widely known as the studios behind Hogwarts Legacy and The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (Avalanche Studios and Daedalic Entertainment, respectively), it still houses a library of beloved titles. Housemarque developed Nex Machina: Death Machine, Resogun, and Outland, so Sony wasn't blowing smoke when it claimed gamers expect quality from the company.
Taking the announcement at face value, Housemarque will have an extra month and a half to shore up Returnal's performance and features, which is good news since the game will use a novel control scheme. Thanks to the PlayStation 5's adaptive triggers, players will be able to switch between weapon firing modes simply by changing how hard they pull down the trigger button. It would be a shame if that mechanic didn't work because of a glitch or bug, and now Housemarque can spend more time ensuring such a potentiality doesn't occur.
While plenty of gamers are disappointed Returnal won't launch for an extra month, many are glad it is being delayed, albeit not for the reasons you might think. Instead of praising Sony and Housemarque for letting the game cook so it doesn't release as a half-baked mess, quite a few commenters want Returnal to be delayed so other gamers can purchase more PS5s. The next-gen scalper problem is worse than ever, and these commenters don't expect Sony to sell many copies of Returnal, which is a PS5 exclusive, since many gamers don't have PS5s to begin with, thanks to scalpers.
Only time will tell if this delay gives Housemarque enough time to polish Returnal to a next-gen shine that players expect.