Times are tough in the gaming industry right now, and sadly, we all know it’s only going to get worse on certain levels, and with certain teams/devs/publishers. That’s why, when an anticipated game gets an official delay, it hurts. Sadly, yesterday, Nine Dots Studios announced that its anticipated survival RPG title, Outward 2, would not be arriving on Steam Early Access soon, and instead, would be pushed back in full to 2027.

In a press release, Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, Nine Dots Studio CEO and the game’s Creative Director, gave this statement about why Outward 2 won’t be playable soon:

“I know that this might seem sudden, as not that long ago we released a trailer inviting people to explore Aurai this summer, but the truth is that if we just stubbornly stick to the plan, we’re delivering a product that might not satisfy your expectations. The last thing we want to do is disappoint fans of Outward and there have been a lot of comments stating that they wish for the game to spend more time in development before the launch. The point of a playtest is to listen to feedback, and so we will.”

It’s honestly refreshing when a developer looks at their title and says, “We need to make it better,” rather than rushing it out in some form just to profit from it. That line of thought has been the source of much frustration across the gaming industry in recent years, and Boucher-Vidal noted that they didn’t want to be the next in that line:

The best we can do is take a hard, honest look at the game, and at our team, and ask: in a few weeks, will this be good enough to charge money for? Our aim is to have such a stark jump between this playtest and the Early Access launch that we earn the trust of our players. You were there for the first Outward, and that’s why we were successful. We want you to be happy to be there again for Outward 2.

Sadly, there’s no indication of when in 2027 the game will be back for people to play. However, you can still sign up for playtests on the title’s Steam page and be alerted when it’s time to jump back into the world.

Hopefully, it won’t be too long into next year when you’ll be able to “Witness A Story Bigger Than You.“