[News] Sky: Children Of Light On Switch Is The Latest Game Delayed By COVID-19

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Sky: Children Of Light On Switch Is The Latest Game Delayed By COVID-19

Thatgamecompany's multiplayer exploration title will not come to Nintendo's console until next year.

 

Sky: Children of Light on Switch has been delayed. The game, which first came to iOS in 2019 and released on Android this year, will come to Switch in 2021. Nintendo fans will have to wait a bit longer for Apple's 2019 Game of the Year.

The game, which was downloaded 20 million times in its first year, is the latest game by Journey developer thatgamecompany. On the game's website, the studio has announced that the game has been delayed for the same reason so many things have slipped or been cancelled this year--COVID-19.

 

"Since March, our studio has taken safe measures to ensure all of our team members stay healthy--emotionally, physically, and free from COVID," the post reads. "Through the pandemic, we’ve done our best to release Sky on Android, manage a live game, and launch two new adventure seasons too."

As thatgamecompany is a small studio, keeping to this schedule while working from home has been difficult, and while they are "close to being in the final stretch" of the Switch version's development, they've had to delay. "In the meantime, we have also decided to hire more staff to help us with this console release as well," the post says.

This is, of course, not unusual--the list of games delayed by the coronavirus is an increasingly long one.

Sky: Children of Light earned an 8/10 in GameSpot's review of the iPhone version. "Sky is both different to everything thatgamecompany has made before but also a smart evolution of what makes its games special," wrote reviewer Alessandro Barbosa. "It's simple to play while feeling incredible at the same time, making the act of flight exciting every time your feet leave the ground. It also features a fascinating spin on in-game purchases, locking its most alluring rewards behind the action of making friends and making a positive enough impression on them."

 

Sky: Children of the Light's Switch port has been delayed into 2021. The announcement arrived earlier today on the game's official Twitter account.

Such news doesn't come as a major surprise seeing as the port never had a solid release date, and given the sheer number of other high-profile delays we've seen this year, I would hope that we've come to accept their necessity.

We've covered Sky a fair bit since its iOS launch late last year. Dann reviewed it at the time, calling it "a beautiful experience which delivers much more than a standard 3D platformer through a fully realised multiplayer system."
Since then, it's received regular content updates that have fleshed out the core experience significantly. Recently, the game surpassed 35 million downloads, released a digital version of its OST, and announced that its players had raised over $1 million for Doctors Without Borders' COVID-19 response.

As a small indie studio, it's been challenging to pull off so many releases back to back. Due to the remote slowdown during COVID & our utmost priority to protect our team’s health, we're pushing Sky on Nintendo Switch back by a few months

 

A full statement on the delay can be read here. And, if you're not the patient sort, you'll of course find Sky: Children of the Light available for download now as a free-to-play game from over on the App Store and Google Play.

It's well worth a go if you're looking for a chilled-out game with a friendly community and plenty of regular events to take part in. Basically, if you were a fan of thatgamecompany's Journey or Flower, it's likely to be right up your street.