The effects of COVID-19 on the global situation can not be understated. This is the single worst catastrophe of the modern era in terms of impact on our daily events from foreign affairs right down to how the average person lives their daily lives. No where is this more apparent than it is in the entertainment industry. Movies that were supposed to be in the can have only just started filming, sports seasons that should have concluded months ago are finally ending and video games are being delayed left right and center. Production issues have also affected the ability for many to play video games forcing most of the market to transfer over to digital sales. Last but not least every AAA game that was scheduled for release this year has suffered months and months of delays some even being pushed to next year. Sadly, with the delay of Halo Infinite this trend is only getting worse, not better.
If delays this bad are hitting games that are near the end of their development cycles how is that going to affect games that are only a year or two in? Games that still need voice acting, mo-cap animations, story boarding and a whole host of other features that simply can't be built via a work from home model are going to suffer the worst delays of all. It's not hard to imagine a whole host of titles being delayed indefinitely because they simply have too much that can't be completed till the pandemic is stable enough that we can work in enclosed spaces again. And that's not happening for at least a year.
2020 has been a stacked year for video games. The Last of Us II, Fall Guys, Ghost of Tsushima just to name a few and more are on the way. But what about 2021? So far the biggest titles slated for that year were supposed to come out this year but anything else doesn't have a release window of any kind. It's not hard to imagine how many of those games originally slated for 2021 are going to be pushed back to 2022. This is not good news for console makers who are releasing their next generation hardware at the end of this year. Gamers usually have to wait three to six months before an appreciable library of games becomes available for the newest consoles. Now that wait is likely to be doubled if not more.
What this leaves gamers as a whole is a giant gap from the middle of 2021 to the spring of 2022 where we have no idea if any games are going to be released beyond the indie studios that can more easily adapt to the work from home model. Keep in mind this lock down only started six months ago and the impact it has had on game production has been MASSIVE. Unless studios can some how figure out how to get all that critical work that requires a studio done safely we may have to wait the entirety of the lock down between AAA game releases. Because a lot of these studios are located here in America or have offices that are based here that's likely to last a very, very long time. Doctors across the nation are pushing for a new lockdown and despite all the protests against masks you see on the news most of the population are scared to leave their houses. My own company, Tesla is a prime example of what happens when you open your office for work but most of the employees don't feel safe. Only two of the members of my eight person team are actually in the office the rest of us are still working from home to protect ourselves. Game studios are likely facing the same challenges with their employees.
None of this is good news for AAA games but there might just be hope for the industry as a whole. As I already mentioned indie studios are more adaptable to a work from home environment so they can weather this storm a lot better than Respawn, WB Montreal and other large studios so we may be relying on them for games in the not too distant future. Bright Memory Infinite, which was featured in Microsoft's first game presentation this year is being made entirely by one person. Heliborne, which is releasing a brand new ultra deluxe edition is a four person team and the makers of Ori and the Will o The Wisp are similarly small. These small teams can work during the pandemic with little to no impact on their work schedules which means they can very easily fill the void left by the massive AAA blockbuster titles. However, these games are well known for requiring much lower specs than the next generation of hardware provides. We'll get a huge host of games over a long period of time that run at far less than 4K graphics and 3D audio. The ultimate irony is that the latest and greatest in video gaming hardware will be saved by games that don't run at the levels they were built for.