'South Park: The Fractured But Whole' Release Date Delayed Until Summer At Least, Maybe 2018

It would have been so easy to make South Park: The Fractured But Whole an episodic follow-up to The Stick of Truth. The 2014 South Park RPG nailed most of the particulars. The Stick of Truth looked and sounded like South Park, for the first time truly capturing the show’s appeal in video game form. Plus, it was a rock-solid RPG. Sure, you ended the game over-leveled and combat got a little stale, but the Super Mario RPG-esque mechanics mostly really worked, ranking The Stick of Truth among the best licensed video game adaptations ever made.

So while it sucks to inform you that, once again, South Park: The Fractured But Whole has been delayed, it’s also good to see just how much of an improvement the sequel will be over the original, introducing more complex combat and a plethora of new mechanics. Ubisoft San Francisco may be taking their time, but we’re hopeful it’s an investment that will pay off.

Originally scheduled for a December 2016 release date, The Fractured But Whole has already been pushed back once before, to the first quarter of 2017. But in a new press release reporting Ubisoft’s third quarter earnings (spotted by FelipeMGM of NeoGAF), The Fractured But Whole release date has been amended to “fiscal 2017-18.” That could mean anywhere between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2018. Hopefully closer to the former than the latter.

A summer release date seems like the most plausible conclusion, but it’s always possible Ubisoft will hold The Fractured But Whole for the holiday season, particularly since this delay forced the company to downgrade its earnings projection for their 2016-2017 fiscal year and there may be even more pressure on The Stick of Truth sequel to succeed.