Upcoming Game Delays Release To Avoid ‘Busy’ February

The Thaumaturge, an upcoming narrative-focused, turn-based RPG, was planned to launch in just a few days on February 20. However, the game has now been delayed until March as the developers and publishers hope to avoid a “busy” February and give the game more “breathing room.”

As we warned late last year, the first few months of 2024 have been stacked with popular video game releases. This is bad news for folks hoping they could catch up on their 2023 backlog in what is usually a quiet time for the game industry, as the first weeks of 2024 have already delivered hits like Palworld, Helldivers 2, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Tekken 8, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. And the rest of February isn’t empty, with games like Pacific Drive, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Star Wars Dark Forces remastered, and Skull and Bones all launching before March 1. As a result of this packed start to the year, The Thaumaturge is going to wait for the dust to settle a bit.

On February 12, developer Fool’s Theory and publisher 11 Bit Studios announced on Twitter and explained in a press release that even though The Thaumaturge is already in the hands of some critics, it was going to be delayed until March 4 in order to avoid all this chaos.

“Taking February’s busy launch period into account and the opening for a better release window,” the two companies said in a statement, “we’ve decided to take this opportunity to give more breathing room so it receives the attention we believe it deserves. We want you to have enough time to enjoy the game in full, and we feel that the current release window is not the perfect moment for it.”

While folks who have been waiting to play the game are probably a bit sad that they have to wait about two weeks longer, it’s a smart move to get away from so many big and small hit games and try to find a bit of a gap in the release schedule to give your game a better chance to find an audience, as well as the attention of over-worked critics and content creators. We’ll have to wait and see if the move pays off.

The Thaumaturge, an isometric RPG set in 1905 in an alternate-universe Poland filled with magical powers and tough choices, will now arrive on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on March 4.

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