It’s delay season in the video games industry, with the vampire hunting western Evil West being nudged back from September to a new release date on 22nd November 2022. It is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One and PC.
— Focus Entertainment (@Focus_entmt) August 16, 2022
Leaning on the industry standard of rendering a statement in a JPG and dropping it on Twitter, the team at Flying Wild Hog explain, “We are working our very best to achieve our vision of Evil West and to meet your expectations. Evil West releases on five platforms, including multiple generations of consoles. Giving our game more polish is crucial to provide our players with not only good but also lasting memories. That’s something we’ve always pursued.
“To ensure that the game reaches its full potential, we have made the decision to delay the worldwide launch of Evil West to November 22, 2022.”
Evil West comes from Flying Wild Hog, the team better known for the Shadow Warrior reboots and you can see some of that attitude seep through to Evil West, with bombastic melee combat, flame throwers, shotgun combos and more. Shadow Warrior 3 was released in March this year but did not really set the world on fire, with a Metacritic rating in the 70s for the PC version and the 60s for the PlayStation versions. We will have to wait and see if Evil West gets a better rating, but it does look like a lot of fun.
This game is joining the throngs of other titles being pushed back from previously announced launch dates. In just the last few days, stablemate Dotemu postponed Metal Slug Tactics, 2K pushed back Midnight Suns, Warner Bros. did the same for Hogwarts Legacy, and on and on. The most surprising element is just how close many games are coming to their planned launch date, publishers and developers holding out hope until the final 6-8 weeks before giving in to the need to give development more time. We just have to hope (likely in vain) that this is allowing the teams to avoid excessive crunch, while also polishing and refining their game to be as good as possible.
Source: Twitter