Myst III Exiled from Europe

European adventure game fans waiting for the release of Myst III : Exile will have to wait a few months longer, as publisher UbiSoft (who recently acquired the title as part of their buy out of the Learning Company's games division) have decided to hold the game back for another four months. We had been expecting it to be released in the UK on May 11th, and indeed the US will still be getting the game some time next month. But UbiSoft today informed us that they are delaying the game's arrival on this side of the pond until September to allow more time for localisation, with a simultaneous launch across the whole of Europe now planned.

Although we applaud companies that take the time to translate their games into other European languages, and appreciate that doing this for a complex game like Myst will require a lot of time and effort, we can't help but feel that this move is rather counter-productive. After all, most English speaking gamers across Europe (especially here in the UK) will simply import the game from America or acquire it by somewhat less scrupulous methods. Either way UbiSoft's European group will be losing out on what has the potential to be one of their biggest hits of the year - the previous two games in the series have after all sold several million copies between them, making this one of the most successful PC gaming franchises of all time.