Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that Sony has cancelled and refunded all outstanding pre-orders for South Park: The Fractured But Whole. This can't be good news for the game.

Pre-orderers do get to keep their bonus copy of The Stick of Truth, though.

@solorex: They did the same thing with Hitman because it moved to a different business model. It's likely that the game has been pushed so far out of the estimated release window that this had to happen. I think they've probably after going back into it to rewrite a lot of it based off previous news events.

Is there a source for that? Not that I don't trust, just curious to see how they're spinning it.

Wow really? What's going wrong with this game??

@xanadu: Gotta remember that stick of truth got delayed pretty massively too (although it did go through some publisher problems). As long as Matt and Trey is involved I'm gonna keep my cool and say this is a "Blizzard" situation (aka done when it's good).

The email I got from Sony (in Danish):

Basically: Thank you so much for preordering the game. Unfortunately we couldn't get a new confirmed release date from the publisher, so we have decided to cancel and refund your preorder. But we're happy to tell you that you get to keep The Stick of Truth for free!

Yeah, it's weird, maybe the gameplay wasn't holding up or something. I dunno

It's gotta be Matt and Trey right they seemed to have quite a lot of gameplay at the last E3

this is strange indeed..

Weird. Wonder if that thing still comes out.

Wow. That first game was quite the success, so I'm surprised that this has been in development for so long... I hope they don't pull the plug on it because I'd like to see how they would progress from the first one.

@canadianmath: South Park became shit after like Season 3. More than anything it was a product of the 90's. Now it just comes across as embarrassing. But hey, people seem to like it still, so what do I know really.

And who knows the reasons for the delay, what they showed last time on E3 wasn't something I was personally interested in, but it looked fine?

Wow, really? The first couple seasons of South Park are like, unwatchable now. Kinda the same way that the first season of The Simpsons is so rough and unhoned compared to the seasons that follow it. The first few seasons of South Park aren't topical or satirical at all - it's literally just kids swearing at each other. That era of South Park is definitely a product of the 90s where it somehow got renewed for several seasons purely on the edginess of kids swearing at each other, but thankfully around Season 4 or 5 the show went with a more satirical bent. I'm not saying the show has been good throughout its run, but the first 2 or 3 seasons mostly have embarrassingly bad gags that few remember at this point, and I'm baffled to see you say that you think it was downhill after the third season.

Interesting that the same thing happened to Hitman.

Excelsior!

@clarkj1981: @bisonhero: I get that, but the swearing kids was the thing I liked about South Park. It was weird and yes very edgy. I can't stand the topical, in-your-face blatant satire that Matt and Trey produce now. Watching that show now, everything feels like a take on something. It's just exhausting to watch.

First of all, South Park is great, always has been and always will be. Most consistently entertaining comedy television show ever. It's maintained a high quality of humor longer than any of its peers and has evolved with the times. It has avoided the trap of becoming too self-referential like lesser shows do. No other show is as good as South Park after 10 years, let alone 20.

Second, it's not really surprising that the game is getting pushed back after the previous game was delayed multiple times. Fine with me, no need to rush it out just to contend with the glut of great games that are available at the moment.

Lastly, don't pre-order games. South Park itself joked about pre-orders being useless around the time Stick of Truth came out.

I guess the Stick of Truth delays weren't Obsidian's fault after all.

I liked the first game a whole lot and think that Matt and Trey have hit some of their highest highs with South Park in terms of quality these past couple of seasons. Hope everything's alright with this project.

The show was mostly unfunny toilet humor up until season 6 or so, but it's improved as Matt and Trey have matured. I can see how self-important ideologues from both sides of the political spectrum would hate it though (several of you in this thread, and you know who you are).

I pre ordered this almost a year ago because The Stick of Truth was free with the pre order and it was on sale. They refunded my pre-order months ago and I was like hey woo free game.

I am guessing Matt and Trey have some quality control over there IP maybe it just wasn't good enough i expect some delays.I am gonna guess this game is gonna come out march next year. If it's ever gonna come out.

I'll have to check to see if my pre-order is still active, was thinking of cancelling it anyway.

When the release date originally moved last year they let people cancel their pre-orders then as well. The only "bad" thing was the pre-order only copy of the original game they were giving out was taken away as well.

I almost look forward to a behind the scenes/making of video for this game more then the actual game.

Given the reasons for delay are more interesting then 'it's just not done yet' if peoples re-write theories are correct that would be pretty fascinating to hear about, it's not often a game has to change course because something political happened. I would like to hear how Trey and Matt dealt with that and how the developers dealt with that as well.
Games getting scrapped or changed along the way obviously isn't a new thing, but if everyone's theory on why it was changed turns out to be true (same reason as the show) that's a new reason for it to happen.

Or that has nothing to do with it and it's just a tech issue or who knows what. I'm intrigued though.
In any case I still look forward to it and doubt it's canceled, my favorite South Park is probably the middle years, but I never stopped enjoying them as a whole. I like the continuity they seem to be going with as of now, if that bleeds into the game then that's extra cool.

South park fell off with the movie, once you un bleep the curse words its not funny anymore. I felt they started getting too creepy to try and stay relevant and just wasnt continuously funny anymore. Last thing i liked was the kanye fish sticks, that was on point lol.

South Park the movie was great but it feels childish now in many ways. It's the most consistently funny comedy show on television, and probably in history; Simpsons doesn't even come close.

@horseman6: I agree that the newer seasons of the simpsons aren't as funny (I haven't watched south park in 2 years) but the first 10 to 11 seasons of the simpsons is 1000x funnier than anything I've ever seen of south park. That's coming from someone who used to watch sp regularly. That's just me though ^_^

Maybe they realised that The Coon was never really that funny or clever a joke?

I think it was supposed to be shocking more than clever or funny. And there have been 100s of clever / funny jokes since the debut of that character, but sure, get hung up on that one joke. Everybody loves offensive humor until it offends them. Just ask Isaac Hayes.

@darkeyehails: It doesn't need to be. The vast majority of their audience most likely doesn't even realize there's more to it than a stupid name for a superhero. If anything it's probably a joke they wrote in mostly for themselves just to bait people.

Probably a good thing since their E3 presentation was so unfunny and dry (I liked the first game ok but not enough to finish it and I haven't watched SP since season 8-9)

@spaceinsomniac: People dont seem to understand that The Coon is a representation of Cartman's "I'm not racist but..." personality. Cartman represents the extreme of both sides of the aisle. He is shocking because he is actually very close to reality in a lot of ways. I dont know what it is about South Park that makes some people refuse to accept there is tons of depth and subtext to almost every decision they make on that show. There is a reason it is a monolithic TV show. It is wayyyy smarter than people give it credit for. I am always disappointed when people get offended by the show, or pass it off ass crass or shock-value entertainment. At the risk of sounding elitist, I think a lot of people just don't get it.

@spaceinsomniac: Yeah and everyone is for people saying anything until someone says they don't like what other people like. Then they get their knickers in a twist decrying other people for the same.

Strange. Has there been any word on this yet?

If this is considered shocking by Americans, that would explain a lot.

I'm really impressed that so many people here know "Matt and Trey" well enough to use their first names AND know that it is their attention to detail/quality holding the game up.