NEW YORK — Several CEOs of prominent video game companies held a joint press conference today, announcing that the entire calendar year of 2020 is being tentatively pushed back until the beginning of 2021.
“Sadly, The Last of Us 2 will just be the first in many high profile things being delayed, so we just got together and decided to get it all out of the way,” said Neil Druckmann, Vice President of Naughty Dog. “It’s all pushed back. Cyberpunk, Ghost of Tsushima, that skateboarding game with the bird, all of it. At this point the best we can hope for is just having another go at 2020 next year.”
The announcement made waves on social media, where the resounding reaction was one of disappointment but ultimately understanding.
“I mean yeah, I was really looking forward to playing this year’s Madden when it came out, after I hadn’t watched a sport in six months,” said Rod Collington, a recently furloughed auto mechanic. “But now it sounds like we all have to wait ‘til next year for this year. That’s fine, I guess I can always just sit and listen to my kid talk about what he saw out the fucking window that day!”
Most game companies defended their practices of keeping employees working throughout the pandemic despite no release dates on the horizon.
“Look, I’m not inhuman,” said Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software. “As an exec, you’re the one in charge of making the tough decisions and letting your employees know what is going on from the comfort of your vacation home. Tough decisions like keeping them on crunch despite the lack of immediate deadlines and the delay of any and all compensation until we can sort this whole mess out.”
“Thankfully, everything else in my life has been going swimmingly,” he added.
As of press time, the developers announced that, in an effort to ease the pain of 2020’s delayed release, they would be fast-tracking the release of Fall Seasonal Depression all the way to May 2020.
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