Both The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima have new release dates due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II will now launch on June 19, less than one month after its prior May 29 release date. Ghost of Tsushima was expected to release a week later on June 26 but is moved back to July 17. This gives the PlayStation 4 a summer highlighted by two high-profile exclusives before the PlayStation 5 launches this holiday season.
The new release date also means that PS4 owners will have to avoid The Last of Us Part II spoilers for two months. Hours of gameplay footage showing key story elements leaked on April 26 before they were taken down on YouTube. Still, summaries and clips remain online.
“I want to personally congratulate and thank both the teams at Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch Productions on their achievements,” Sony Interactive Entertainment Head of Worldwide Studios Hermen Hulst said in a PlayStation Blog post. “We know it’s not an easy feat to reach the finish line under these circumstances. Both teams have worked hard to deliver world-class experiences, and we can’t wait to see what you think of them when they release in just a few short months.”
Sony announced The Last of Us Part II at its PlayStation Experience event in December 2016 with a short trailer showing that both Joel and Ellie would return from the 2013 release. The third-person action game again has players controlling Ellie as she attempts to survive in a post-apocalyptic world filled with dangerous humans and a fungus that takes over bodies.
Ghost of Tsushima is the latest title and a change of pace from Infamous developer Sucker Punch Productions. Rather than controlling a superhero in a modern city, the open-world game features an outnumbered samurai trying to fend off the Mongol invasion of Japan in the 1270s. It was most recently seen at The Game Awards 2019, where a new trailer was premiered alongside a performance by a live orchestra.
This just leaves Iron Man VR, which is indefinitely delayed due to the coronavirus, and Michel Ancel’s open-world survival game Wild as the only Sony-published PS4 games still without launch dates.
