Report: The Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima Delayed

Update 10/24/19 12:40 p.m. EST

Both Naughty Dog and Sony have confirmed that The Last of Us 2 has been delayed to May 29, 2020. The news comes via a post on the PlayStation Blog from Vice President of Naughty Dog, Neil Druckmann.

As tends to be the case with such delays, The Last of Us 2 has been postponed to provide further polish. Druckmann said: 

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.

There is a link to the entire blog post at the bottom of this article. As of this writing, Sony has not commented on the rumors surrounding Ghost of Tsushima. 

Original Story

It seems the recent Twitter scuttlebutt from the last few days might be accurate. According to new reports from Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, both The Last of Us 2 and Ghost of Tsushima have been delayed until “later” in 2020. 

Schreier’s original Kotaku report references two unnamed sources at Naughty Dog, who said: “the [The Last of Us 2] is bumped to spring.” Though the Kotaku article does not reference a delay for Ghost of Tsushima, Schreier followed his report with a tweet, saying, “Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t have a public release date yet, but it’ll also be bumped later into 2020 to account for this delay.”

Sony has not yet confirmed that either game has been delayed, with Schreier suspecting that there will be an announcement from Sony this week regarding the news. Being Thursday, that would mean the developer should have something to say within the next 24 hours. 

Just a few weeks ago, The Last of Us 2 received an official release date of February 21, 2020. If the news above holds true, those looking forward to the release of the highly-anticipated sequel are back in limbo. 

However, Ghost of Tsushima never had a release date, so the news of its delay is a bit less jarring. First announced during Paris Games Week 2017, many thought the game would release sometime in 2019, even though we’ve seen relatively little of the title since its unveiling. It now seems that we’ll have to wait even longer to get our hands on what looks like a fantastic samurai action game from Sucker Punch. 

According to those in the know, both games are still slated to release on the PlayStation 4, though some believe both could also be released on the PlayStation 5. Considering the new spring 2020 forecast for The Last of Us 2, that would mean a second release for the game later in 2020 alongside the PS5. For Ghost of Tsushima, it’s currently anyone’s guess. 

Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more on these two PlayStation exclusives as news develops. For more on The Last of Us 2, check out some recent TLoU2 gameplay from a recent media event at Naughty Dog. See Ghost of Tsushima gameplay here. 

Source: Kotaku, Twitter, PlayStation Blog