Overview
- Developers Gameplay Group and publisher PM Studios announced on Thursday, July 23 that the Xbox Series X/S version will be delayed to September 3 because of an "unforeseen circumstance on a backend feature," and said existing Xbox pre-orders will remain active unless customers cancel them.
- PlayStation 5 and PC (Steam) versions remain slated to launch July 23 while the Nintendo Switch release will arrive the same day as a Standard Edition only with no cross-play or non-English localization at launch, with developers saying those features will be added later.
- Early reviews and previews praise the game's hand-drawn animation, core combat systems and online netcode but repeatedly criticize its tutorials, onboarding and story-mode difficulty as unfriendly to newcomers.
- Players, especially on Xbox, reacted angrily to the last-minute delay announcement, and analysts warn the staggered, feature-limited rollout could shrink the pool of available opponents and weaken matchmaking at launch.
- The developer has pledged future updates to add Switch cross-play, Deluxe Edition content and localization, and outlets noted late-stage character and animation changes before release that reporters say may explain some of the platform-specific problems.