A press release from Bandai Namco has announced that Code Vein has been delayed. The new release date has been pushed to sometime in 2019, according to this announcement.
Code Vein was scheduled to be released in Japan on September 27th. The western launch would have hit a short while later on September 28th for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Bandai Namco Entertainment America Vice President of Marketing Eric Hartness accompanied the press release with a comment explaining the decision, also mentioning that the game has received an “enormous amount of positive feedback.”
“CODE VEIN has received an enormous amount of positive feedback from eager fans who have received hands-on time with in-development versions of the game over the past nine months. Armed with knowledge of how well the game has already been received, we made the decision to postpone the release of CODE VEIN to further refine its gameplay in an effort to exceed the expectations fans already have of the title. It was a difficult decision to make, but we feel it is the correct one.”
It’s no doubt peculiar that a release date got pushed so soon after being publicly confirmed. In the case of Code Vein, the release date was announced less than a month ago. Bandai Namco has a good reason though, because if the polish and gameplay experience weren’t up to snuff, the game would have flopped hard. But it could also be that the game would have gotten crowded out by other releases in that quarter. August and September have some pretty big releases competing for the attention of gamers. Monster Hunter World and World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth both hit in the middle of August for PC, and all the major sports franchises hit around that September 28 date. Granted, most of these games probably have little crossover with the audience for Code Vein, so this may not be the reason the game was delayed.
