The Last Guardian Delayed Until December, Fans Wonder If They’re Trapped in the Twilight Zone

In a move that almost borders on parody at this point, the PlayStation 4-exclusive The Last Guardian has been delayed once more, this time until Dec. 6.

In development since 2007, announced in 2009 and planned for a release on the PlayStation 3 in 2011, The Last Guardian had already become a long-running joke after numerous internal shakeups, constant delays and long spans of silence, leading to rumors the game had finally been canceled.

But at E3 this year, Sony dramatically revealed that The Last Guardian, the spiritual successor to Ico and Shadow of Colossus, finally had a release date: Oct. 25. It was what the game’s eager fans had been waiting years for. The game was alive and well, and it was definitely on its way.

But like Sisyphus, cursed by the gods to endlessly push his boulder to the top of a hill every day, only for it to roll back down again, so too must fans endlessly endure as their excitement and anticipation for The Last Guardian builds, only to see it crumble at the last second as the game’s release is pushed once again further into the future.

In a short blog post, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Shuhei Yoshida announced that The Last Guardian would be delayed until Dec. 6 to give the team time to polish the game, which had “more bugs than anticipated while in the final stages of development.” Yoshida at least acknowledged the game’s endless delays, saying, “A delay is a difficult decision, particularly with this game.”

“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad,” and all that. Honestly, what’s six weeks on top of the seven years we’ve already waited? We don’t mind waiting a little longer to cry our eyes out over that dog-eagle thing.

You can read Sony’s full blog post below.

The Last Guardian development team is fast approaching major milestones in production and has made the tough decision to delay the release of The Last Guardian a few weeks. The Last Guardian will launch on December 6, 2016.

Fumito Ueda, gen DESIGN and JAPAN Studio have a wonderful vision for The Last Guardian’s touching, emotional journey of friendship and trust, and we want to deliver the most polished experience possible for our fans who have supported us for so long. A delay is a difficult decision, particularly with this game, but we have encountered more bugs than anticipated while in the final stages of development. To ensure that The Last Guardian delivers on the experience that the game’s creators have envisioned, we need to take the extra time to work on those issues.

Our development continues to push itself to the fullest and we look forward to revealing new content toward launch.

We appreciate your continued support.