COVID-19 could lead to May games’ delays, including The Last of Us Part II

According to well-known journalist Jason Schreier, from the American website Kotaku, more games could be delayed due to COVID-19 concerns.

Only titles being developed in China have been affected thus far, such as The Outer Worlds for Nintendo Switch, but Schreier is hinting at similar moves to be made in short and medium-term in all the territories as the novel coronavirus’ emergency gets more serious worldwide.

“It won’t be too much longer before the COVID-19 video game delays start,” Schreier hinted in a tweet.

While he did not provide any details about which games he believes will be delayed, he added that “games that are planned for this month and maybe April should be fine, but after that all bets are off.”

The Kotaku reporter was one of the first to provide information about The Last of Us Part II‘s delay from its original February 2020 window to May 29, 2020. Now that he is tweeting such information, it’s safe to state he is at least hinting at the PlayStation 4 exclusive yet again.

We don’t have information about a possible delay of the game, and there’s no reason to believe that will happen right now. Still, Naughty Dog will surely have to re-organize how it works similarly to how Rockstar Games and CD Projekt RED have to face the outbreak. Whether this will mean a delay or not, it remains to be seen.

On top of that, there could be publishing-side considerations from Sony, which could believe it could be better to delay a triple-A retail release such as The Last of Us Part II out of a period where the United States – the biggest territory where it launches physical copies of its titles – will reportedly meet the peak of COVID-19 cases.

At the time being, Naughty Dog still faces poor work conditions due to the strong crunch culture it is based upon, something it doesn’t seem will get rid of soon, especially under the threat of a further delay over coronavirus concerns.