Ni no Kuni II Delayed to Early 2018, Will Not Have Multiplayer Content

Today Akihiro Hino, Level-5 CEO and director of Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom appeared in a special video to announce that the release date for Ni no Kuni II has been pushed back until January 19, 2018. "We have decided that more development time is required in order to deliver the full Ni no Kuni II experiece to our fans," Hino-san said. "I deeply apologize to those who have been looking forward to the game's release.

That wasn't the only announcement he had to make, either. Apparently during an E3 interview, Hino-san misunderstood a question about online content, and answered in a way that led some people to believe that Ni no Kuni II would have multiplayer content. As it turns out, this was also a mistake. This is what he had to said about the mixup:

"Please allow me to clarify that Ni no Kuni II will not have multiplayer content. I misunderstood the interview question, thinking it was asking about online content in general, and my answer referred to online announcements of in-game events. As a result of this, I wrongly gave the impression that the game features multiplayer content. I would like to sincerely apologize for causing this misunderstanding.

"Please rest assured, however, that we will continue to strive to provide a deep and satisfying single player experience that our fans can look forward to enjoying."

It's a bit of a bummer to be sure, but you guys didn't honestly think that Ni no Kuni II was going to have some kind of robust multiplayer component anyway, did you? I mean come on, it's a JRPG. Other than some kind of social system for looking on friend's decisions and progress like in Persona 5, we're not even sure what kind of multiplayer would have been possible.

Oh well. The beginning of 2018 is starting to look pretty stacked for PS4 owners, much like the beginning of 2017 was. It's a bit of a shame when all of the great (and lengthy) games release at the same time, but we'll make do!