Developer Naughty Dog announced that its PlayStation 4-exclusive third-person action-adventure Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will miss its targeted release date, and is now set to premiere in April of 2016.
The announcement marks the latest in a string of delays for Uncharted 4, which was originally slated to launch by the end of 2015. The game’s release date was subsequently pushed back to March of 2016, and today’s announcement delays it by an additional month.
“Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is wrapping up production and is shaping up to be the proper send off for Nathan Drake that we’ve promised you,” creative director Neil Druckmann stated. “The bad news is that we need a bit more time to finish the game so that it meets our standards and vision.”
Druckmann continues: “As we approached our final deadlines and started wrapping up the game’s levels, we realized that several key sequences needed extra resources to bring them to the finish line. After carefully considering all of our options, we decided to extend our schedule, making sure that we get a few more polish passes before submitting our gold master (the final disc for manufacturing).”
Following up on a popular trilogy of games for the PlayStation 3, Uncharted 4 will be the final entry in the Uncharted franchise, and will wrap up series-spanning storylines that revolve around protagonist Nathan Drake. Uncharted 4 will also be the last game in the series developed by creator Naughty Dog.
A series compilation, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, premiered for the PlayStation 4 earlier this year, upgrading the single-player campaigns from the PS3 Uncharted games with improved textures and faster framerates. The Nathan Drake Collection is currently available as part of a holiday-exclusive PlayStation 4 hardware bundle through the end of the year.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will launch exclusively for the PlayStation 4 on April 26, 2016.
