Mighty No. 9, the Kickstarted action game from Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune's Comcept studio, won't be making its planned Feb. 2016 release and doesn't have a revised timetable yet. This is the third delay for a game that was originally intended to arrive in Apr. 2015.
The latest Kickstarter update from the Mighty No. 9 team pins blame for the delay squarely on the challenges of bringing the game to so many different platforms. "The issues relating to the network modes were more critical than expected, and it has become apparent that we will need to delay the game from its February 9th release date," the update reads.
There's no firm timeframe for Mighty No. 9's eventual release, though Comcept "realistically" expects it to be sometime during spring 2016.
This isn't the first time the studio has confirmed a delay at the 11th hour. Confirmation that Mighty No. 9 would miss its Apr. 2015 delivery came in an update at the very end of that month. The revised Sept. 2015 launch was framed as good news at the time because Comcept secured a publishing partner in Deep Silver.
Then, three months later in Aug. 2015, a delay struck again when Comcept pushed the game's launch into early 2016 with slightly more than a month to go before its September release.
The Feb. 12, 2016 timing was confirmed last September in a Kickstarter update. Inafune later doubled down on that date, making a promise at Japan's Unreal Fest 2015 that the release wouldn't be pushed back again (via Polygon).
Since August, the official line from Comcept regarding Mighty No. 9's issues has remained the same: the process of bringing the game's online features to so many different platforms -- PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and Windows -- is fraught with unforeseen difficulties.
Delays aren't unusual in the world of video games, but the continuing setbacks for Mighty No. 9 -- along with the fact that Inafune launched a second Kickstarter in July 2015 that subsequently failed -- have left fans and backers alike short on patience, as Monday's social media outpouring demonstrates.
At this point, it's possible I could start to conceive and code a game today and STILL have it out before Mighty No. 9 - and I don't code.
— Matt Paprocki (@Matt_Paprocki) January 25, 2016
Soon they'll have to change the year in Mighty No. 9 from 20XX to 2XXX to maintain plausability
— TieTuesday Boom (@TieTuesdaySA) January 25, 2016
Mighty No. 9 got delayed... AGAIN, but I bet they'll put up another Kickstarter for ANOTHER game before it gets released... AGAIN.
— Drake McWhorter (@TrailerDrake) January 25, 2016
On one hand, "A delayed game is eventually good". On the other, Duke Nukem Forever. I wonder which Mighty no 9 will be.
— Adam W. (@seven5three) January 25, 2016
Mighty No 9 more like Mighty No Game lol
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 25, 2016