If you were hoping for a nice open-world romp from Ubisoft, looks like you'll be stuck with the blue waters of the Caribbean in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flags, and not the windy city of Chicago, because Ubisoft just issued Watch Dogs with a delay, ensuring the game won't see a release until this spring.
Cross one game off my Christmas list for this year...
The move comes after the developer revised its financial expectation for 2014's fiscal year, and issued the following statement on the matter:
"Our ambition from the start with Watch_Dogs has been to deliver something that embodies what we wanted to see in the next-generation of gaming. It is with this in mind that we've made the tough decision to delay the release until Spring 2014.
We know a lot of you are probably wondering 'why now?' We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune every detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you. We thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the way you respond on the web, at events, press conferences and during other opportunities we have to interact. Your passion is what drives us.
We can't wait to see you in Chicago next Spring. We are confident you'll love this game as much as we love working on it."
The game's open world racer The Crew was also affected by revisement, and won't arrive until this April at the earliest.
Game delays are always a bit of a pain in the neck, but as Watch Dogs was suppposed to be a launch title for both Microsoft and Sony's next-gen systems, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, you can bet that this move from Ubisoft is going to be a lot more than just a simple pain.
Amazon as well as GameStop are both saying that they will be honoring Watch Dogs bundles for the new consoles, but it's not yet known what either retailer will be substituting in the game's place. are both this November, but it's unknown at this time what game, if any, will be included with the console.
We'll keep you posted if and when a more official date is provided for either title.