Coronavirus Pandemic Can Stop Video Games From Coming Out This Year

The coronavirus outbreak is doing a lot of damages to businesses in the world, including the video game industry. While many of us are staying home with not much to do, the fact that video games will be delayed will make it difficult to fill in your extra time with a good video game that you've been waiting for a while.

One of the first major games that was supposed to come out in May this year, The Last of Us 2 by Naughty Dog, has been delayed indefinitely with no release dates on the horizon. This is a sign to come regarding other major titles that are supposed to release later in 2020, like Cyberpunk 2077.

How coronavirus will stop video games from coming out

Kotaku's Jason Schreier tweeted out, or rather put an extra comment saying "Bookmark this tweet" on one of his previous tweets, which said that more delays for games releasing after April will be coming due to coronavirus disease, COVID-19. Looks like he's been proven correct with the first casualty being The Last of Us 2.

Chances are for a lot of the games releasing later this year, the issues with delays would come from logistics, not development, which would trouble a lot of major titles that require game discs and cases on consoles and so on. Big games rely on manufacturing and distribution more than smaller downloadable titles.

But things like pandemics have the potential to affect any kind of game for whatever reason. The game Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red is one of this year's most anticipated titles, and the developer previously maintained that it would still come out in September 2020. Let's see if manufacturing and logistical issues would affect its release.

Nobody knows for sure how many games could be delayed as a result of this outbreak, because we would have to see how the pandemic is being handled, and whether the disease would not start being unpredictable. An event like E3 that was supposed to take place in August was already canceled, so it looks like a lot of major games won't come out for a while...