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Saints Row 2 delayed to October

Needs more polish before hitting the streets.

THQ's sandbox game Saints Row 2 has been delayed by almost two months, and will now launch on October 17th in Europe, the publisher told Eurogamer this morning.

News of the delay was announced in the US last night, with the firm saying it wanted to hold the game back a while in order to let developer Volition polish it a bit more - as well as giving THQ a chance to build up a better marketing campaign.

The game, which was originally meant to launch on August 26th in North America, will now appear on October 14th - with THQ confirming to Eurogamer today that the European release will follow on Friday of the same week, October 17th.

The change pushes Saints Row 2 deep into the hyper-competitive pre-Christmas market (yes, that starts in October now - or September, depending on who you listen to), but THQ's worldwide marketing head honcho Bob Aniello reckons it's still the right thing to do.

"Product quality is a huge drive of a game's success and this move allows us to polish the game," he told the Reuters news agency. "The game is done, it's about polish."

Saints Row 2 is, of course, THQ's pretender to the GTA throne - but it seems to be doing plenty to distinguish itself from Nico's Liberty City adventures, with a very different visual style, lots of unique gameplay features and, perhaps best of all, drop-in/drop-out co-op multiplayer. If that piques your interest, check out Dave's preview to find out more.