Phoenix Point is delayed until December to ‘keep crunch to a minimum’

Snapshot Games has confirmed it has pushed back Phoenix Point’s release date in order to keep “crunch to a minimum”. The September 3rd launch has now been delayed until an unspecified date in December 2019, although the developer has promised that backers will be able to play Backer Build 5 on the original release date instead.

“While the development team is working hard, and Phoenix Point is shaping up really well, we now know we’re going to need more time to get it to meet our very high standards,” the team said via a backer update (thanks, VG24/7). “As you probably know, Snapshot has a commitment to keep crunch to a minimum – and that is a commitment we take very seriously. Therefore, because we know we have more work than we have time, we will be delaying the release of game from September 3, 2019 to December, 2019.

“We know this is not our first delay, and we are very sorry to the fans who we know are highly anticipating getting their hands on Phoenix Point,” the post continued. “No one is more disappointed than we are, but we collectively agree that we would rather miss a launch date than ship something that does not meet our exacting standards. We want the Phoenix Point you play to be one of your favorite games of all time, and that means we need a bit more time.”

Phoenix Point hails from XCOM creator Julian Gollop and raised an impressive $765,948 when it appealed for backer support on Fig back in 2017. Since then, however, it has suffered a number of delays, and then upset backers further by confirming a partnership with Epic to be exclusively on PC via the Epic Games Store for its first year.

Phoenix Point is just one of a slew of exclusive titles snapped up by Epic Game Store from partners as wide-ranging as Take-Two’s Private Division, Quantic Dream, Remedy and 505 Games. Following the success of The Division 2, Ubisoft has committed to launching more new titles, and back catalogue titles, on the store, too, continuing its partnership where titles are exclusive to UPlay and Epic Game Store. Some of those back catalogue titles have been promised as being part of the free games programme.

Mobius also recently confirmed that its Fig-funded space exploration game, Outer Wilds, will be a PC exclusive for Epic Games Store, too. In a backer update on Fig, Mobius reported that the team had “welcomed helpful partnerships with Annapurna Interactive, XBox, and Epic” and while the game had initially been linked to Linux, Mac and PC on Steam for a Q2 2016 release, the collaborations had helped “keep our small studio running long enough to ship the game at the level of quality that it is today”.