Delays

Sony says it is still working to get Payday: The Heist ready for release in Europe, a week after the game launched on the US PlayStation Store. In a post on the PlayStation Blog revealing this week's PS Store update, Sony's Andy Stewart writes: "We are close to being able to confirm the release date of Payday: The Heist and are just waiting for SOE to provide 100 per cent confirmation, which we hope will be with us later today." More >

The Xbox Live Arcade port of indie success story Minecraft has slipped to next spring. The delay was revealed by Microsoft producer Stuart Platt on Twitter yesterday. Announced at E3 in June, the XBLA port of Minecraft is being handled by Dundee developer 4J Studios and was originally set for release in 2011 More >

A post on Dead Island's Facebook page reveals that the game's first DLC expansion, Bloodbath Arena, has been delayed because developer Techland is still busy with the game itself. More >

Skullgirls, the 2D indie fighting game that was due for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network this year, has been delayed until early 2012. In a post on the game's official blog, lead designer Peter Bartholow explains that the addition of several new features means Skullgirls will not be released until the first three months of next year. More >

Thatgamecompany's Flower follow-up, the online adventure Journey, never had a concrete release date, though the initial fact sheet said it would be released this year. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, co-founder Jenova Chen reveals that Journey will now be released next spring. More >

While Just Cause 2 developer Avalanche Studios' top-down vehicle shooter was released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network two weeks ago, publisher Sega has remained tight-lipped about the PC version's release date. Until now: Renegade Ops will be available from Steam on October 14. More >

In a press release, Blizzard has announced that Diablo III has been delayed, and will now be released early next year. More >

Warner Bros has announced that the PC version of Batman: Arkham City has been delayed, and will now be released in November. More >

MCV reports that publisher Deep Silver has chosen to delay the European release of Team Persona's erotic thriller Catherine until Q1 2012. No reason is given for the delay, though it appears a safe bet that Deep Silver has opted against putting the quirky Atlus puzzler up against all the other Q4 big hitters, which seems a sensible decision.

European gamers eagerly refreshing their email inboxes in the hope of receiving an invitation to The Old Republic beta will be doing so for a while, after BioWare's Chris Collins said the studio had decided to wait for a new build of the Star Wars MMOG before sending out the invitations. Collins said that asking European players to download a 27GB client, then a few days later wipe their progress and ask them to download the client all over again was "not an experience we want new testers to be exposed to...You have my word that this batch of invites will happen, it may just mean you have to wait a little longer."

Eidos Montreal's excellent Deus Ex: Human Revolution was set for release in Japan on Thursday, but publisher Square Enix has announced a last-minute delay that will see the game slip to October. The reason, according to Andriasang, is an area in the game that "shows expressions forbidden by the Japanese games rating board." We know that ratings board CERO's guidelines forbid references to existing people or countries, and as such our guess is that the offending material may be graffiti in Heng Sha.

A Natsume spokesperson has confirmed to Nintendo World Report that the planned western release of two 3DS games, Gabrielle's Ghostly Groove and Harvest Moon: Tale Of Two Towns, have been delayed due to sluggish sales of Nintendo's new portable. Both games are now slated for an October release in North America.

A Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed to OXM: "Microsoft and LucasArts have elected to move the launch of Kinect Star Wars standalone game beyond holiday 2011 to ensure the full potential of this title is realised." The delay also applies to the Star Wars-branded Xbox 360 console, sadly, and Microsoft has declined to pin down revised release dates.

The planned European release of Double Fine's mech tower defence game was blocked by a Portuguese board game called Trench. Microsoft has this morning confirmed that Trenched will finally be released next month, under a new name, Iron Brigade.

The week's least surprising news comes from Ubisoft, which has confirmed that Driver: San Francisco will be its third PC game in the space of a month - following From Dust and Call Of Juarez: The Cartel - to suffer a delay. It will now be released for PC on September 30 - four weeks after the console versions.

Eat Sleep Play's demented vehicular shooter was due in October this year, but in a post on the PlayStation Blog David Jaffe confirms it has slipped to early 2012. "We're going to miss our date," he writes. "We're going to be late. A lot of dedicated, supportive, passionate Twisted Metal fans have been waiting for a long time but the truth is: we're just not ready yet. Thing is, you gotta trust me when I tell you that – with this extra time for tuning and polish – the game is going to be so much better than it already is. With Twisted Metal we plan to ship a multiplayer classic."

In an interview, the Elite creator says that the decision to put on hold the development of The Outsider was in large part due to an increasingly risk-averse publishing community. "There's a problem at the moment as big publishers are running scared," he tells us. "What really upsets me is that we have this Call Of Duty-shaped jelly mould, and it's being used to create games that are all competing for a very narrow niche. That's very disappointing as a gamer…something inside me dies when I see another game that looks exactly the same as all the others." For the full interview, follow the source link below.

The Xbox 360 version of CD Projekt's The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings has been pushed back to the first quarter of 2012, partly due to the ongoing legal tussle between Namco and THQ over publishing rights. Making the most out of a bad situation, however, CD Projekt has promised to put the additional development time to good use. "The extra time will allow us to polish the title to perfection, so that the game offers an ideally balanced, fantastic experience to gamers," said studio head Adam Kicinski. "As the launch of the game approaches, we will be sharing more details how it will be released on Xbox 360. I trust that despite the release date shift, players will be satisfied with what we are planning for them."