Sloclap has announced that Sifu was delayed into 2022 to prevent the team from crunching on the game.
Sifu was one of the highlights of the most recent State of Play, showing off some brand new combat and the game's respawn system that ages the main character whenever they die.
RELATED: New Sifu Trailer Shows Off Combat With Weapons, Delay To Early 2022
We were hoping to release Sifu before the end of 2021, but this won’t be possible without compromising quality and having the team crunch for months, neither of which is acceptable. Even if it’s for the best, we're VERY sorry for the delay. Thank you for your patience!
— SifuGame (@SifuGame) July 8, 2021
However, the team had some bad news for anyone hoping to play Sifu this year, as the game was delayed from a 2021 date to "early 2022". The team referenced the bad news in a Tweet for the trailer, saying, "We have good news and bad news – the good news is that we're happy to share a new gameplay trailer taking you deeper into the club. As for the bad news… you’ll have to watch the trailer".
In a Tweet a few hours after the State of Play, Sloclap announced that the delay was put in place in order to prevent the team from crunching on the game. It said, "We were hoping to release Sifu before the end of 2021, but this won’t be possible without compromising quality and having the team crunch for months, neither of which is acceptable. Even if it’s for the best, we're VERY sorry for the delay. Thank you for your patience!"
Sloclap also talked about the game's delay on the PlayStation Blog and said some of the same things about not wanting to crunch. It said, "We still felt earlier this year that we could make our original planned launch date, but as the deadline grew closer, it became clear that we wouldn’t be able to do so without putting the quality of the game at risk or creating huge pressure on the Sloclap team – and neither of these options were acceptable to us."
The general message is that Sifu could have released in 2021, but at the cost of the game's quality and the health of the development team. Even though it may be disappointing that gamers won't be able to play Sifu this year, less crunch is always a good thing for the industry.
NEXT: Every New Game And Announcement From July's PlayStation State Of Play