After an announcement in April that the game had been delayed indefinitely, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Head of Worldwide Studios Hermen Hulst has announced via the PlayStation.Blog that The Last of Us Part II will launch on PlayStation 4 on June 19th.
The game was originally due out in February, which was then pushed back to May, until earlier this month when we received word that there was an indefinite delay.
The original reason cited for the delay was that “the global crisis is preventing us from providing the lunch experience our players deserve,” though specific details around this were lacking. Many assumed it to be difficulties in production of physical discs, while others posed that the game’s post-apocalyptic storyline may be hitting too close to home among a global pandemic.
Whatever the reason, we weren’t sure we were going to see a major release after Final Fantasy VII REMAKE, which launched March 2nd on PlayStation 4.
In addition to The Last of Us Part II, Sony has delayed Ghost of Tsushima to a July 17th launch date, pushed from its original June 26th release.
Both games add triple-A games to Sony’s PlayStation 4 catalog ahead of shifting to PlayStation 5-focused development. There are no other announced titles of this calibre coming to PlayStation 4 in the coming months, and we expect that Sony will be announcing its launch lineup for its new console in the coming months as a result.