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Your most anticipated game got delayed? That might be great news!

One of this year's biggest games may have just been delayed

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Remember the gorgeous PlayStation 4 and PC game "No Man's Sky?" Maybe you saw it on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert?" It was supposed to come out really soon, on June 21, but may actually arrive later this year in July or August (according to two sources speaking with Kotaku; the game's developer, Hello Games, and Sony haven't said a word yet).

"No Man's Sky"
Hello Games

As such, there is much gnashing of teeth going on from fans who were anticipating to get their hands on the game sooner than later:

Indeed.

But there's good news, too: More time in development often means a better game! Not always — chill out! — but in many cases, yes, a game being delayed means it needs a little bit more time in the oven. After years of development, the last few months of a game's creation can be instrumental to the overall "polish" of the experience.

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In English: A lot of good video games become great video games in those last minutes of development.

One recent example is "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" — you know, the gorgeous, Tomb Raider-eque PlayStation 4 action game? 

uncharted 4
Sony

It was delayed more than once, and even pushed back an extra two weeks just before launch. That's a seriously big deal when you're talking about a game like "Uncharted," which is one of Sony's biggest flagship franchises. You can only play it on PlayStation 4: It's one of the PlayStation 4's main selling points in terms of exclusive games. And Sony is a publicly traded company, so delaying major games is potentially impactful in a more direct financial way with investors.

In short, it's not a small decision to push back a game like "Uncharted 4." It angers fans. It affects investors. It's a whole thing. So, why was it delayed? Because the game's developers needed more time to create a satisfying ending for fans.

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Here's the game's creative lead, Neil Druckmann, speaking with Official PlayStation Magazine:

There is something that happens [at the end of the game] that requires quite a bit of work for what we want it to do, and again we would have had to reduce that scope and reduce that ambition to meet that [original] deadline.

Without saying exactly what Druckmann's talking about (we don't want to spoil the game), we can say that the ending of "Uncharted 4" is something special (there's a great, spoiler-filled piece all about it on Kotaku if you wanna get wild). And if a delay for "No Man's Sky" means the difference between it being good and it being great, then we should all celebrate the studio's prescience. 

Oh, and if you're looking to play something else in the meantime, there's this new game "Overwatch" that's super good.

Gaming PlayStation 4 PC
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