A couple of days ago, Gearbox released a video to announce that the game would be getting delayed by a month, from May 3 to June 14, 2011. No reasons were given. It looked like a publicity stunt to allow the company to use the phrase, "The Duke never comes early." They're classy like that.
On his Twitter account, Pitchford attempt to clear things up. "The delay was NOT planned. It is very difficult and expensive for us, but the right thing for fans," he said. "I know. It sucks and I'm sorry. There were some things that we just didn't want to cut corners on. We 've already done everything we can. Nothing is getting cut because of the delay. Some things are getting better, though."
In other words, the game was delayed for legitimate reasons: to polish the game.
Pitchford continued: "We're doing the right thing. Lots of natural uncertainty turned out to make our earlier prediction [about task completion and difficulty] not accurate. Best to face it ASAP rather than too late. We've got about 50 – 60 certification and "A" bugs left in the database, which is right for where we are."
He says that the delay was not due to censoring the game's Capture the Babe mode, which had received complaints from media outlets, including our own here at GameRanx.
"It'll ship," Pitchford ensured. "We'll announce the demo date for the First Access Club Members as soon we we can. Shouldn't be long now."
