No one would blame you for being confused about when Ubisoft and Free Radical Design were planning to release “Haze” on PlayStation 3.
Not only has the futuristic shooter changed its platform focus a few times — something eerily reminiscent of “Assassin’s Creed“’s early days — but the release date itself has shifted over and over and over and over — you get the point.
Today, Ubisoft announced that “Haze” is coming in May but didn’t attach a specific ship date. That’s probably because they made that mistake last year and completely missed it.
“Haze” was announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 2006 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC for release “sometime” in 2007. For an early reveal, that’s common.
That release date was eventually narrowed down to March 2007 before Ubisoft’s financial calendar indicated “Haze” would be missing that date and arriving before the end of Ubisoft’s next fiscal year, which spans April 2007 to March 2008. Gamers have come to expect delays this generation, so the move was hardly unexpected, but there was already a notable buzz over the game’s unique drug-based mechanics. That buzz would have to hold a little longer.
If you’ve been following “Haze,” however, you know that was only the beginning of the release date shuffling. Read on for the rest of the confusing tale.
Not long after, Ubisoft officially confirmed the delay and positioned “Haze” for release in a vague “second half of 2007″ timetable. As the end of the year neared and no word of a new date came, it appeared “Haze” was poised for yet another delay. Instead, however, “Haze ” received a specific shipping date in the UK: December 14. Ubisoft later clarified that as simply “December” for the US, but at least “Haze” was coming.
Dropping such a high-profile title so close to Christmas is uncharacteristic of the games industry because you miss the Thanksgiving rush. But it’s not entirely unheard of. “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” was originally targeted for a December 3 release and Midway released “Unreal Tournament III” for PS3 on December 10.
Unfortunately, “Haze” also missed that date, which Ubisoft said was now the first quarter of 2008 — in other words, before the end of March. Not long after, Free Radical Design commented on the most recent delay in their blog, hoping to put some fears to rest:
“Well, the simple fact of the matter is, any delay on a game is a good thing - it’s more time to optimize and polish and tweak and generally improve the whole damn thing to the Nth degree. .., but believe when I say that the delay is the best possible thing for the game. Hell, the reason why you guys are so pumped about it is because you have high expectations, and we need just a little more time to make sure that we meet them.”
“Haze” may still meet those expectations, but it certainly didn’t meet its first quarter release date. Instead, Ubisoft made the same decision it did a year prior and pushed “Haze” into sometime between April 2008 and May 2009. That’s quite a window.
Maybe it’s all been settled, however, with the announcement of today’s May date.
We hope. Readers, are you still excited about”Haze,” or have the constant delays put it off your radar?