Capybara's long-awaited Below delayed indefinitely
"We're just not quite done excavating its depths, or polishing all of its facets."
Capybara Games' (Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery, Super Time Force) highly anticipated action-roguelike-like Below has been delayed indefinitely.
The moody dungeon-crawler was announced over three years ago at E3 2013 and was slated to finally arrive this summer, but Capybara Games just released a new blog post saying that this is not to be.
The reason: making great games takes time. Sometimes a lot of time. Remember how long Fez took? (About five years.)
"We did a lot of soul searching. We knew we wanted to get it into your hands as soon as possible. We knew the game was there, and we're super proud of it, but we also knew it needed more time to make sure it lives up to our studio's standards, and the quality that you expect from our games," Capybara said in a blog post.
"From the very beginning, Below has been our most ambitious undertaking, and we're just not quite done excavating its depths, or polishing all of its facets."
To honour this philosophy of quality over immediate gratification, Capybara isn't offering a new release window other than when it's done.
"Instead of giving you a new, loose release window, we will be going dark while we take the time that we need to complete Below without compromise," the studio stated. "The next time you see a major Below update, that means our game has a firm release date, which we'll share."
"Making games is hard but rewarding work. Accepting, even after this long development, that the game needs more time is difficult, but it's important that we are honest with ourselves as creators, and with you, the players."
On the plus side, Below does seem to be shaping up well. Eurogamer editor Oli Welsh went hands-on with it at GDC earlier this year and had a blast with it.
"Below is gorgeous and dripping with atmosphere, and I really enjoyed its mix of swift, old-school action adventure with tough roguelike logic and lonely, meditative exploration," he wrote in his impressions piece. You can also hear his views in video form above.
Below is currently in development for Xbox One and PC.