Publishers Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment have announced that they are delaying the release of Middle Earth: Shadow of War, the hotly anticipated sequel to 2014’s Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, until October.
In a blog post, developers Monolith Productions announced a new “Worldwide” release date of October 10th. This came with the addendum that Australia, New Zealand and Japan are going to face a different release date. Given Shadow of Mordor launched in Australia just over a week after North America, Aussie fans hopefully shouldn’t have to wait too long for Shadow of War. However, as many developers have learnt in recent years, a week can be all the time that is needed for the gaming community to make up its mind about a new release.
This recent trend of bad launches for big games is a possible reason for the delay in Shadow of War’s release. In their announcement, Monolith state that they pushed back the release to reach their desired quality standards. Since Shadow of Mordor’s release, the gaming world has seen highly anticipated games like Mass Effect: Andromeda and No Man’s Sky face strong launch day negativity from not meeting player expectations. Between the popularity of the Middle Earth IP and the success of its precursor, Shadow of War faces a similar level of anticipation from fans, even without teasing a mysterious new magic ring to appear in the game.
This delay could show Monolith’s determination not to make Shadow of War into another launch day horror story. Alternatively, it could be another nail in the coffin. Now when Shadow of War launches, players have even more reason to expect a high quality product and are unlikely to forgive bugs and graphics issues.
Fans who can’t contain their excitement can expect more to see from Shadow of War during E3 so make sure to check back in with us here at Checkpoint for updates throughout the conference.
Meanwhile, let us know what you think! Are games releasing too soon or not soon enough? Would you rather more delays in favour of fewer issues at launch or do you just want your game now and can look past quality issues?
About the Author
Lex Leighton
If Lex isn't sitting in front of his computer writing uni assignments and playing video games, he's probably playing a board game with friends, running a Dungeons & Dragons game or trying to read without his glasses because he's left them somewhere again.
