Spiritual successor to the Mega Man franchise, Mighty No. 9, is having its release date delayed for the third time.
Announced on a post via the game’s Kickstarter, series creator Keiji Inafune apologizes to fans and backers for the delay and cites bugs in the game’s various network modes as the main reason for the third delay. “The reason for the delay is rooted in bugs inside the network modes, and specifically problems with matchmaking.” Inafune states in the update.
“There are two large reasons for this problem, one of them being the large number of platforms supported (the solution for each platform is slightly different) and the other stems from the fact that the engine we are using is no longer being updated which means adjustments for matchmaking and online code are being made manually (actually reprogramming parts of the engine by the dev team themselves).”
The comment on the large number of platforms causing problems is significant in that Mighty No. 9 was initially only planned to be made for PC. As the Kickstarter reached upwards past the $1 million mark, stretch goals were added to make versions for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, Mac, and Linux. The game’s first two delays were blamed largely on the amount of quality assurance tests being made for the added additional platforms.
No new released date has been given but Inafune expects the the new date to “realistically be in Spring 2016.” Mighty No. 9 was originally planned for release in April 2015 so this likely means the game won’t be released until more than a year after it’s first expected release date. The game was then first delayed to September 2015 and then later to February 9th 2016. Despite all of these delays Inafune stays optimistic in delivering the game sooner than later.
“Although we are far past our original release date, the release of Mighty No. 9 is still right around the corner. We are all working hard to make sure that we can finish and release the game to all of our fans as quickly as possible, and ask once more for your support of this project that we have created together over these last few years.”