Today Ubisoft Montreal has revealed that their upcoming title Watch Dogs will be delayed to “spring 2014” which for us down under typically means Autumn. All current and next-gen versions of the game have been been pushed to the now delayed release window. While we were looking forward to getting our hands on the new open world IP this year the development team feels the game needs some much needed polish before it is launched.
Here is Ubisoft’s official statement:
“Our ambition from the start with Watch_Dogs has been to deliver something that embodies what we wanted to see in the next-generation of gaming. It is with this in mind that we’ve made the tough decision to delay the release until Autumn 2014.
We know a lot of you are probably wondering ‘why now?’ We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune every detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you. We thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the way you respond on the web, at events, press conferences and during other opportunities we have to interact. Your passion is what drives us.
We can’t wait to see you in Chicago next Spring. We are confident you’ll love this game as much as we love working on it.”
The question is what does this mean for people who pre-ordered bundle packs of Watch Dogs with the PS4 and Xbox One? From the looks of things retailers such as Amazon will still be offering the console to consumers but no word on what games will be released as an alternative. I will update this post as other retailers make statements on the issue.