The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe will be out early 2022, for real this time

During the Game Awards in 2018, an expanded version of entirely serious office-life drama The Stanley Parable was announced with a release date of 2019. As that year drew to a close, the release was pushed back to 2020, "probably before summer, but it sort of depends on the specifics of how development goes". That didn't work out either. News of its delay to 2021 was delivered via borrowed delay announcements from other games. By this point, nobody was taking the date seriously.

And so, the new trailer begins: "What does it mean to be a videogame developer? It means lying, boldly and brazenly to your audience, promising them release dates that are wildly outside the realm of reality." Then it confidently announces a new release date of "early 2022". However, this time it's "content complete." It even has a Steam page. I think it might actually be for real. (If you're reading this from the future and it's not, please don't laugh.)

"If you're wondering why this game has taken so long to develop," said writer/designer Davey Wreden on Twitter, "the script for new Ultra Deluxe content is actually LONGER than the script for the original game". While the original game's story will remain as it was, additional choices, secrets, endings, and so on have been added around it. Wreden went on to explain, "It's different than the original Stanley Parable, sort of. We wanted even veterans of the game to feel surprised. I'm glad we took this path."

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe will also have accessibility features and upgraded visuals. And be out in early 2022. Totally. Yep.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.