Sony and developer Housemarque have confirmed that the upcoming PS5 exclusive Returnal has been officially delayed into April 2021. At the virtual CES this year, Sony's PlayStation conference had briefly mentioned that Returnal would be hitting shelves on March 19, 2021. The first release date we heard from the two companies, many had anticipated a delay was in order with such a short time frame before release. In a "shocking" move, that assumption was true.
Returnal will now be ready to shock and awe you on April 30, 2021. The main reason for the delay is to "give the team extra time to continue to polish the game," so reads a Tweet from the PlayStation Europe Twitter account. Not to beat a dead horse, but the "failure" of Cyberpunk 2077 has made publishers more cautious and I'm all for it.
Revealed last year during Sony's PlayStation 5 Gameplay Reveal event, Returnal was an enigma of a game that sort of just existed. With the debut trailer showing next to nothing about how the game actually functioned, we were mostly left making jokes about its funny name until something more concrete came along. That's what makes this delay unsurprising since we still don't know too much about the final product.
Considering the pedigree of the studio (which developed Super Stardust, Dead Nation, and Resogun), it's not hard to figure out what Returnal will be. It's a modern adaptation of the twin-stick shooter, just taken from a third-person perspective. That could be rather interesting and I'm happy the team will have more time to polish it.
Source: Twitter