Comprehensive collection of game delay announcements a reminder that making games is hard

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We regret to inform you that the game will be late.

Cyberpunk 2077 Panam
(Image credit: CD Projekt)

Youtuber Mark Brown, best-known for the Game Maker's Toolkit series, recently posted some images—well quite a lot of images actually—from his private collection. The topic: Game delay announcements.

Brown shared the images in batches of four, the above being Cyberpunk 2077, Deathloop, DOOM Eternal and Far Cry 6. 

But there are more: many, many more. The Saints Row remake, Final Fantasy VII Remake, New World, Halo: Infinite, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Outriders, Back 4 Blood, Humankind, Battlefield 2042, Dying Light 2, Gotham Knights... the list goes on.

It's funny how many of these I barely remember. Delays are so common in the games industry that, outside of a surprise announcement on a much-hyped product (like Cyberpunk 2077), they tend to be in the news for a day then forgotten about. As you look through this list it's like an endless parade of mostly great games and almost all of them are well-funded titles from big publishers. These companies almost without exception have good track records, money, and proven know-how. But making games is hard.

Brown's collection does feel like it should be in a museum in some sense; these weird little artefacts of the modern hype cycles. In the old days, he says while lighting a pipe, delays were also common but much less commented-on: Whereas the size of the industry now, and the budgets involved, makes any kind of delay big news.

It's pointless wondering about whether it should be big news: It just is. The fact that something like Cyberpunk 2077 took eight years to make, with a rumoured budget north of $300 million, on its face gives some idea of the complexity of these projects. Even then, with the delays, CDPR shipped the game and it was in a bit of a state (more on consoles than PC, but the point stands). Games are ultimately a creative endeavour as much as a technical challenge and money and time can't always solve a given project's problems: Even if it might help.

Rich Stanton
Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."