It"s no question that PlayerUnknown"s Battlegrounds is a massive hit in the PC crowd, selling a staggering four million copies in just three months since the game"s release on Steam"s Early Access program.
But, as to when the game will finally come out of Early Access, PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene, had been giving an ambitious six-month target in interviews. One of these interviews, conducted back in April, was published a few days ago on Rock Paper Shotgun. In it, Greene guaranteed that the game would be out of Early Access in "six or seven months."
Today, Greene posted an update regarding the game"s Early Access roadmap, saying the studio will not be able to meet the previously promised release date. Greene explained why the delay was needed, as follows:
Over the past few months I have done a lot of interviews, and in many of them, I said we hoped to be out of Early Access six months after we first launched. I’ve come to realize that restricting the window to a specific month could hinder us from delivering a fully featured game and/or lead to disappointment within the community if the launch deadline is not met.
The studio is now aiming to launch the game out of Early Access before the end of Q4 2017 - not the biggest delay of a game we"ve seen. Greene also made clear that weekly and monthly updates will continue arriving for Battlegrounds as usual.
It"s yet to be made known if this delay will also affect the game"s upcoming Xbox One release, which was announced at E3 last month, and is slated for a late 2017 launch.
Source: PlayerUnknown"s Battlegrounds (Steam) via PCGamer | Image: Steam