Games planned for 2021 are more likely to be impacted by COVID-19 delays

There has already been a few game delays this year due to the coronavirus situation, some of which we don't yet know about. According to Xbox head, Phil Spencer, there is still more to come, as next year's titles are more likely to be impacted than what was scheduled for release this year.

Speaking with Business Insider this week, Spencer explained that he feels “pretty good” about the games scheduled for Summer and Fall/Autumn. However, the games targeting “a year from now or beyond” will see “some impact” due to this year's issues.

For instance, motion capture studios are essentially shut down right now. That means teams that had their animation captured and just needed to do touch-ups or individual art production are “in a better position”, while those waiting for “large audio work or mocap” are “held up right now”.

Voice acting is another area that is causing delays, as observed by MMO developers, like ArenaNet or Square Enix, both of which have had to pivot on recent content patches due to quarantine limitations. Of course, the industry will manage to bounce back eventually: “I'm pretty confident in the industry's ability to continue a steady flow of games coming out. There's just a lot of games in production across the industry right now, and I think we're going to be—as an industry—we're going to be fine.”

KitGuru Says: We'll still be seeing the impact of COVID-19 next year, but video game studios are adapting, so things should improve.

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