Rockstar Games spent a great deal of last year plugging and promoting the release of Grand Theft Auto V, and although fans were bracing themselves for a Spring 2013 release, the publisher-developer has pushed the arrival date all the way back to September 17th. Those looking forward to a Summer immersed in the aesthetically-startling environments teased hitherto will be bitterly disappointed, and the momentum Rockstar has managed to generate may also take a severe hit.
GTA is one of the most recognized franchises when it comes to open-world action, and although it has been a long time since Grand Theft Auto IV, the promise of an April/May release was just about bearable for those fans desperate to get their fix.
Naturally, Rockstar has assured gamers the delay will only amount to a better game once it eventually does arrive, and while this may be the case, its predictions – which touted the release as four months earlier than it is now saying – were clearly way too ambitious, and the company must have known for quite a while that it wasn’t going to meet the targets promised to would-be consumers.
The company has tried to play down what it describes as a “short delay,” although a Fall release for a title due before Summer is hardly what one many consider to be a minor hiccup. In a press release on the matter released today, the story goes:
Trust us, it will be worth the extra time. GTA V is a massively ambitious and complex game and it simply needs a little more polish to be of the standard we and, more importantly, you require
Rockstar then went on to apologize for the mix-up, and once the community ceases to lament over this rather lengthy delay, it will certainly be expecting the magic to happen once September 17th finally arrives.
So, it looks as though 2013 may play out much in the same manner in which last year did; plenty of teasers and sneak previews of GTA V, with only the hope of a corresponding release. We’ll keep you posted should anything change, so stay tuned to our coverage here at Redmond Pie!
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