Deathloop Delayed until September

Deathloop has been delayed until September, according to Arkane Lyon over on the game’s official Twitter account. While Covid-19 wasn’t directly cited, the announcement made it clear the ongoing pandemic contributed to the delay. That, and the studio is likely trying to avoid the dreaded “crunch” prevalent in the lead-up to most major launches.

Deathloop will release September 14th, 2021.

Deathloop has been pushed back from its May 21st, 2021 release date by roughly four months. The upcoming assassination first-person shooter from Arkane Lyon will now release September 14th, 2021. Arkane shared both a short video and a letter to fans over on Twitter today to announce the delay.

The letter from Game Director Dinga Bakaba and Art Director Sebastien Mitton has this to say:

“We’re committed to quality and preserving our team’s ambitions for DEATHLOOP while ensuring the health and safety of everyone at Arkane. We’ll be using this extra time to accomplish our goal: create a fun, stylish, and mind-bending player experience.”

The video featuring both gentlemen largely says the same thing: the studio doesn’t want to put their staff at risk to rush out a product that doesn’t live up to their or fans’ expectations. While this delay is likely due to Covid-19, which continues to affect game development as more and more games are delayed, it also appears to be an attempt to keep the team from crunching to make the original May 21st release date.

Either way, the delay sounds like a smart move. Better to have a delayed game that’s good than a rushed one that needs a year of patching before it’s serviceable. That’s my take at least.

Deathloop releases September 14th, 2021 on PC and as a one-year timed-exclusive on PlayStation 5.