Mass Effect: Andromeda Delayed

EA's latest entry in its sci-fi role-playing game series Mass Effect has been delayed. Mass Effect: Andromeda was earlier slotted for a Holiday 2016 release. Now it has been pushed to next year.

The news comes via the game's official website in a post penned by Aaryn Flynn, General Manager of BioWare - developer of the game who cites that it needs time to get it right.

"As we've been playing the game at the studio recently, it's showing us that we're taking the game in the right direction. But we also know we need the right amount of time to make sure we deliver everything the game can be and should be - that's our commitment from all of us to all of you,"Flynn writes. "Because of that, Mass Effect: Andromeda will now ship in early 2017. We can't wait to show you how far we're all going to go. We'll see you at the EA Play press conference on June 12, with an update."

It should also come as no surprise considering the studio needs sometime to get things in order. In the past few months it lost some key figures working on the game. These include Chris Wynn, the game's development director who landed a job at Daybreak Games on zombie MMO H1Z1, it's lead writer Chris Schlerf who moved to Bungie to work on Destiny, and Cameron Harris, it's senior editor who exited the games industry altogether.

Incidentally, an early 2017 release would put it on par with the release window of Mass Effect 2 and 3 which were out in the same timeframe. It's also a safe bet considering that the holiday season of 2016 will see a host of heavy hitters include EA's own Battlefield 1 and Activision's Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.