When the Batman Arkham remasters rumor started circulating a few months ago, it was expected to carry a release date of the Friday before E3. When WB Games officially announced the project, what we now know as Batman: Return to Arkahm, a collection that remasters both 2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, it had a release date of July 26th, a date that WB Games is now planning to miss.

WB Games announced this morning that Return to Arkham will not arrive next month as planned, and as of this writing, doesn’t even have a release date. The publisher issued a statement and had this to say:

“After reviewing the progress of the project, the team at WB Games has decided to delay the release of Batman: Return to Arkham to give the team at Virtuous Games additional time to deliver a polished Batman Arkham game experience. We do not have a release date yet and will be sure to communicate that once we are sure the game will be ready. We know this is disappointing news, but we feel the extra time will allow the team to create the best gaming experience for our fans.

In order to keep conversations around this topic in one place, please keep any discussions regarding this news in this thread. All other posts regarding the release delay will be locked and directed to this post.”

While it’s never not disappointing to hear that something you were looking forward to is delayed, I personally want this remaster to be the best it can possibly be. The Arkham series, while still incredibly well-regarded, lost some credibility after the buggy launch of the WB Games Montreal developed Batman: Arkham Origins in 2013 and the disastrous PC port of Batman: Arkham Knight last year. I’m okay with the delay, though still obviously a bit disheartened that I won’t get to play this next month, but it really makes you wonder if this was something that has been an issue for a while now or something that only came up recently upon reviewing the work of Virtuous Games.

In any case, I appreciate WB Games willing to control their IP and only choose to release it when it’s absolutely ready to be released, and who knows, maybe they’ll throw in some extra goodies to make up for the delay.

VIA KOTAKU