Superhero satire RPG ‘South Park: The Fractured But Whole’ delayed until 2017

By Danny Cowan September 15, 2016

comedy rpg south park fractured but whole delayed to 2017 southparkdelay — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ubisoft’s RPG satire South Park: The Fractured But Whole will miss out on its planned December launch. A retail release for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC platforms is now slated for early 2017.

Ubisoft’s official blog briefly discussed the delay, explaining that “The development team wants to make sure the game experience meets the high expectations of fans and the additional time will help them achieve this goal.”

Revealed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June, South Park: The Fractured But Whole is a console-style role-playing game based on the popular Comedy Central animated series. The Fractured But Whole serves as a sequel to the franchise’s 2014 debut South Park: The Stick of Truth.

The Fractured But Whole pokes fun at superhero tropes and cliches throughout its single-player campaign, singling out Marvel’s many recent films in particular. Gameplay follows suit with the introduction of several new playable classes inspired by comic books and high fantasy, including Cyborg, Psychic, Assassin, Brutalist, and Gadgeteer.

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone demonstrated The Fractured But Whole‘s expanded combat mechanics during Ubisoft’s E3 2016 presentation, revealing that players can rearrange their party’s turn order by deploying “farts [that] are so powerful that you can use them to rip the fabric of time itself.”

The Fractured But Whole is the latest in a string of recent delays for prominent up-and-coming console RPGs. Publisher Square Enix recently announced that its long-awaited RPG sequel Final Fantasy XV had slipped from a scheduled September launch to November of 2016, while the Disney-themed action-RPG compilation Kingdom Hearts 2.8 was pushed back from December to early 2017.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole is now set to launch for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PCs in the first quarter of 2017.

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A player stands in Metro City's Times Square equivalent in Street Fighter 6 World Tour.

While Street Fighter 6’s traditional Fighting Ground experience made a solid first impression at Summer Game Fest, its significantly more ambitious World Tour mode is still shrouded in mystery. We briefly got a look at this ambitious mode during the game's State of Play trailer. We see what appears to be a player-created character explore Metro City and other locations from a third-person perspective, breaking boxes and getting into fights with the people he meets.
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In World Tour, players will explore Metro City and other iconic Street Fighter locales with a player-created avatar. Nakayama hopes this experience will strengthen Street Fighter 6's appeal to those who aren't already diehard fans of the series or genre.
"World Tour is a completely different mode that delivers a completely different experience than the traditional fighting," he said. "Even if someone's not a hardcore fan of fighting games, we wanted to incorporate things to make people become fans of Street Fighter outside of the traditional fights."
World Tour certainly looks unlike anything the Street Fighter series has done before. Still, Nakayama hopes that World Tour players will learn more about the world and characters of Street Fighter along the way and fall in love with fighting games as a whole."We want players to dive into this mode and be able to learn how to love fighting games through the things that you do during the journey of World Tour," Nakayama proclaimed. "There will also be opportunities to meet some of the fans' favorite characters, like Ryu and Chun-Li, through World Tour. We want to provide an experience where players can learn more about those characters' backstories and discover what kind of people they are within Street Fighter 6."

World Tour is one of Street Fighter 6's three main pillars, the others being the standard Fighting Ground mode and the multiplayer-focused Battle Hub. He commented how it's always hard to tell how much is enough to put in a game for fans, especially following Street Fighter V's rocky reception at launch due to a lack of content. However, he hopes World Tour provides enough to negate that criticism.
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During our discussion, Nakayama constantly reiterated that he wants Street Fighter to be something that can entertain and entice those who've never played a fighting game before. Part of the developer's method for making Street Fighter 6 more approachable and accessible is the addition of the Modern Control Type, which allows players to execute flash combos with simple button presses.

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Street Fighter 6 loads super fast-on PS5 too, with rematches loading nearly instantly. Those quick load times helped ensure I stuck around for even longer than my allotted demo time, but so did Street Fighter 6’s satisfying gameplay.
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Street Fighter titles have always been very lauded and popular fighting games. As genre trailblazers, the last few Street Fighters mainly focus on evolving the combo-based gameplay that sets a standard for the rest of the genre. Street Fighter 6 is no different.

You’ll punch and kick as your favorite characters, stringing together button press and stick movements to pull off wild special moves and combos. Many of the iconic combos and button presses return just as you remember them, so you shouldn’t have trouble pulling off a Hadoken a Ryu when you finally get your hands on Street Fighter 6.
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Even though I’ve played less than an hour of Street Fighter 6, it already feels fantastic to play and like a solid evolution for this classic series. For fans that might not be as familiar with fighting games, Street Fighter 6 isn’t leaving them in the dust.
This game introduces the Modern Control type, which lets players execute special moves like the Hadoken or the Shin Shoryuken with simple button presses. Holding R2 and mashing triangle is much easier to understand than a complicated string of button press and stick movements, so fans who want to see each character’s flashiest moves should enjoy this new control scheme.

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Ringo, Arrow, and other party members stare at something in the distance in Soul Hackers 2.

Atlus has perfected the JRPG and is now reveling in it. Persona 5 is one of the best games of the 2010s, thanks to its endearing cast of characters and impeccably stylish presentation. Meanwhile, Shin Megami Tensei V was no slouch in 2021 as it provided a dark and hardcore demon-driven RPG experience. After demoing the game at Summer Game Fest Play Days, t’s clear that Atlus has found a clear sci-fi middle ground with Soul Hackers 2.
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My demo of Soul Hackers 2 began in the Hangout, where protagonist Ringo and her party can hang out and heal between dungeon-crawling escapades. Then, I proceeded to go into the futuristic sci-fi city, buy some weapons, gear, and healing items from eccentric shopkeepers, and get a drink with my party members named Arrow.
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