If you were one of the many people gleefully looking forward to BioShock Infinite's announced October release date, marking off the days from now until the time which you'd be able to sky-hook your way around the floating city of Columbia, you're going to want to add a few extra months to that timetable. 2K and Irrational Games announced this morning that BioShock Infinite won't be hitting that original release date, nor any date inside of 2012. Instead, it's been pushed to February 26, 2013.

The reason for the delay? Opportunities, of course. In this case, Levine was quoted in an official statement as having "uncovered opportunities to make Infinite into something even more extraordinary." What, exactly, those opportunities are, we do not know. But they apparently were big enough that they required skipping both E3 and Gamescom this year. Levine said in a separate statement that the game won't be making appearances at either show.

That way, the next time you see our game, it will be essentially the product we intend to put in the box. Preparing for these events takes time away from development, time we're going to use instead to get the best version of Infinite into your hands in February.

While this is likely encouraging news to pretty much every other game publisher who had any interest in winning an E3 or Gamescom award this year, it's not so great for everyone who actually wanted to play BioShock Infinite this year. To those who did, perhaps take some solace in the fact that opportunities for extraordinary...erm, stuff of some kind are being explored. And that stuff will probably be great. But not until February. And not at E3. Or Gamescom.

If you were one of the many people gleefully looking forward to BioShock Infinite's announced October release date, marking off the days from now until the time which you'd be able to sky-hook your way around the floating city of Columbia, you're going to want to add a few extra months to that timetable. 2K and Irrational Games announced this morning that BioShock Infinite won't be hitting that original release date, nor any date inside of 2012. Instead, it's been pushed to February 26, 2013.

The reason for the delay? Opportunities, of course. In this case, Levine was quoted in an official statement as having "uncovered opportunities to make Infinite into something even more extraordinary." What, exactly, those opportunities are, we do not know. But they apparently were big enough that they required skipping both E3 and Gamescom this year. Levine said in a separate statement that the game won't be making appearances at either show.

That way, the next time you see our game, it will be essentially the product we intend to put in the box. Preparing for these events takes time away from development, time we're going to use instead to get the best version of Infinite into your hands in February.

While this is likely encouraging news to pretty much every other game publisher who had any interest in winning an E3 or Gamescom award this year, it's not so great for everyone who actually wanted to play BioShock Infinite this year. To those who did, perhaps take some solace in the fact that opportunities for extraordinary...erm, stuff of some kind are being explored. And that stuff will probably be great. But not until February. And not at E3. Or Gamescom.

noooooooooo, what else is coming this fall?

Damn it.

Well shit...

Oh well.

I'm okay with this, October and November were crazy busy already and I would much rather Irrational take it's sweet time making this game even better and than put it out in February, when it's all nice and quite.

WTF!!!

The one game I was genuinely looking forward to this year!

Damn! My most-looked-forward-to game of 2012... Hopefully they use the time well!

Ugh, that stinks.

I wanted this, but my wallet is thankful that the pain will be spread out a bit more this fall.

GTAV late 2012 confirmed

GTA V October 2012 here we go!

Aaaw! That's not awesome :/

This was incredibly weird cause I went into the Bioshock Infinite page, saw the release date of 2013 and went "Wait. Did they push that back? Wtf was I doing when they announced this?!"

And then this story came out and all was clear.

I'm kind of happy about it.

As long as a bunch of other stuff doesn't get delayed to February as well.

But Elizabeth has really great "F Me" eyes.

Maybe Take 2 is ready to officially announce GTA 5 for october and gracefully pushed Bioshock back some to not butcher their own sales.

so we've widdled down holiday releases to borderlands 2, assassins creed 3, COD BO2, and a shitty new Nintendo system? I thought 2012 was going to be crazy awesome for games :/

Good for them, would rather dev's spent more time perfecting their games instead of just pooping sequels out each year.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well this sucks because I can't wait for this game but if the little bit of a delay makes it a better game I can wait.

GOOD.

GREAT, now I have to go my whole day thinking about this. AWESOME.

Now my expectations of the game are even higher. Hopes these uncovered "opportunities" work out.

Fuck yes if this means GTA V this year

No, I didn't! (:

Good news for me. It's refreshing to hear publishers and developers decide to delay a game that you know will see the light of day. As with Gears of War 3 I was happier knowing that they worked on the game for several more months.

I can wait for Bioshock Infinite, though it seems like the most interesting game on the horizon there are other games to play in the mean time.

Bummer. Well, whatever it takes for Irrational to make the best game they can. More power to 'em.

Man, I was looking forward to that. Shit. I hope everything's going well with their dev cycle.

Still earlier than Final Fantasy Versus 13.

"Instead of single choice pre-order bonuses, we will allow our consumers- I mean fans, to choose from several different pre-order bonuses from a single retailer. Needless to say, it'll be worth the wait."

Bah.

I actually didn't so I'm fine with this.

This is great news for me. Borderlands 2 will take up 99% of my gaming time for months after it comes out. This way I can actually dig in to Infinite.

That's fine, plenty of other stuff to play as it is. I say let Ken and his team make the best game they can.

Take as much time as you need Levine. Well.. within reason.

I'm okay with waiting, I want this game more than anything else right now but in Ken I trust.

:(

I'm kinda glad too. There's too much stuff coming out this fall ... and February is usually pretty slow. If it actually ends up being a better game for it, that'd be a fine bonus.

ooohhhh crap!

Launch title for new systems?

Bioshock ushered these consoles in with greatness, hopefully it will usher them out with it too.

Okay, wait. Reading that statement by Levine about how they found a new thing to make BioShock Infinite even better makes me feel way better about this delay.

I think he might have played Fez, you guys.

I don't mind them skipping out on events or pushing the game back to improve it but it's still a huge bummer. I'm not sure what other big games are coming out this year that I'm looking forward to anymore. Can't think of one right now.

Now how am I supposed to answer those recurring polls about what everyone's most anticipated games of the remainder of 2012 is?

I'm always disappointed, but glad when games like this get delayed. When a franchise or developer is linked with quality I will happily wait for them to make the best game that they can. I'd rather play an incredible game in February than a game that needs some work this fall.

Fuck everything about this.

This seems like a good thing. The Fall / Holiday release window is always way too crowded with big releases.

Great, this gives people more time to realize how sexist Elizabeth's character design is.

Ahhhg. This was one of my most anticipated games this year. The world they're building is much more interesting to me than anything else I've seen in development recently. I guess the extra time will only benefit the final product but the wait kind of sucks.

@PerfidiousSinn said:

Great, this gives people more time to realize how sexist Elizabeth's character design is.

Them women can't wear corsets!

Really excited to see what's coming out of this.