The Last of Us Part II delayed indefinitely over coronavirus

By Tyler Treese April 2, 2020

Highly anticipated sequel The Last of Us Part II is delayed due to the coronavirus, officially named COVID-19, pandemic. Sony announced the change Thursday but didn’t provide any additional details.

Marvel’s Iron Man VR, another PlayStation 4 exclusive, is also delayed.

The Last of Us — Image used with permission by copyright holder

“[Sony Interactive Entertainment] has made the difficult decision to delay the launch of The Last of Us Part II and Marvel’s Iron Man VR until further notice,” Sony said in a tweet Thursday. “Logistically, the global crisis is preventing us from providing the launch experience our players deserve. Currently, there are no other delays to report, but we’ll keep you updated.”

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Update: SIE has made the difficult decision to delay the launch of The Last of Us Part II and Marvel's Iron Man VR until further notice. Logistically, the global crisis is preventing us from providing the launch experience our players deserve.

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) April 2, 2020

It’s the second delay for The Last of Us Part II after Naughty Dog’s follow-up to 2013’s The Last of Us was pushed back in October 2019. The Last of Us sequel was originally planned to release on February 21, 2020.

Director Neil Druckmann said that the initial delay was made so the studio didn’t have to compromise its vision and that the team wishes “we could’ve foreseen the amount of polish we needed, but the size and scope of this game got the better of us.” The PlayStation 3 original received critical acclaim upon release and the sequel has been in development since 2014.

Marvel’s Iron Man VR is set to be Sony’s second exclusive title with Marvel, with the first being Insomniac Games’ well-received Marvel’s Spider-Man. Developer Camouflaj announced in January that it wouldn’t be able to hit its February 28 release date and was being moved to May 15. The studio said that the move was made to “deliver on our vision and meet the high expectations of our amazing community.”

This latest string of game delays is yet another example of how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the games industry. Conferences and trade shows such as the Game Developers Conference and Electronic Entertainment Expo were postponed or canceled impacting planned game reveals and business deals.

Still, Sony expects the upcoming PlayStation 5 will come out as expected. While there has been little information provided on the new console, the company said it expects “no material impact” for its gaming and network services segment for the current fiscal year. The PS5 is expected to come out for the holiday 2020 season.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

When not playing or writing about games, Tyler Treese serves as the Senior Editor at Wrestlezone. An experienced writer that…

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The Last of Us on PC has launched in a dire state. Although I haven't experienced as many issues as some players are reporting, the consensus is clear: the game is buggy, poorly optimized, and underbaked. It's currently sitting with a Mostly Negative review status on Steam, which is typically reserved for the most broken games, like Battlefield 2042.

Consider yourself warned if you want to jump into Joel and Ellie's story on PC, especially if you just finished off the excellent HBO series. For players who already have the game, there's a particular issue you should be aware of that relates to Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), as well as demands on your system that go far beyond the recommended specs.
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The Last of Us finale makes a subtle change from the game to set up season 2

Joel holds the surgeons at gunpoint in The Last of Us' finale.

HBO viewers were rocked Sunday night by the finale of The Last of Us, which brought the iconic ending of Naughty Dog's critically acclaimed game to life in live-action. It was an extremely faithful adaptation, with no huge deviations from the source material. However, a key change was made that will help the show more gracefully transition into its adaptation of The Last of Us Part II.
Note: Spoilers for The Last of Us TV show and The Last of Us Part II video game to follow.
At the climax of The Last of Us Season 1's final episode, we see Joel annihilate most of the Fireflies and doctors at the Salt Lake City hospital as they prepare to operate on Ellie to get a cure, which would have killed her in the process. It's a chilling sequence that hits the same dubious, morally horrifying notes as it did in the game, and little is changed.
We see Joel kill the surgeon about to operate on Ellie after he picks up a scalpel and says he won't let Joel take her. Joel shoots him in cold blood, but does not kill the nurses assisting him. As he walks out of the room with Ellie, a shot lingers on the face of the now-deceased surgeon, punctuating Joel's massacre.

That may sound like a small cinematic altercation, but that lingering shot is very meaningful to those of us that played The Last of Us Part II. In the original game, we don't think much about Joel's victim; he's just some nameless doctor. In Part II, however, we meet that doctor's daughter, Abby, who's on a quest for revenge. What's a thoughtless action for Joel becomes deeply personal for someone he's never met.
By adding in that extra shot, the finale more confidently sets that up. Even if casual viewers don't know it yet, the groundwork is being laid for something that will be very important in the next season and makes it clear that the show knows where it's going.
The finale further teases what's to come with a smart bit of casting. Eagle-eyed fans may notice that one of the nurses during the scene is played by Laura Bailey, who portrays Abby in The Last of Us Part II. It's likely just the show paying tribute to the game's cast (as it did in episode 8 with Troy Baker, who voiced Joel in the video games), but it's also another way to tease what's to come in the next season. Abby is coming for Joel. Prepare your golf balls.
Of course, when Naughty Dog released The Last of Us in 2013, it didn't yet know that this doctor would play such a pivotal part in the sequel's story, so not as much focus was put on him in the game. The developers retroactively tried to correct this with a retelling of the sequence from Abby's perspective in The Last of Us Part II and updated models in the game's remake.
Showrunners Craig Maizin and Neil Druckmann have the benefit of knowing this moment's importance from the start and not being locked to Joel's third-person perspective. They can now take the time to linger with a shot like this, emphasizing what Joel has done and laying the groundwork for what comes next. It's a short and subtle shot that slightly deviates from the original game, but it's also something that could only be done in this TV show and will certainly be hugely important for the show as we head into season 2.
The Last of Us is available to stream on HBO Max.

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