With the new release date just weeks away, developer Comcept has pushed Mighty No. 9 back yet again.

Mighty No. 9 is the byproduct of an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign led by Keiji Inafune’s own studio Comcept. The Mega Man spiritual successor follows the “Mighty #9” robot Beck on his quest to stop the other eight berserk robots loose in the city.

Despite being one of the highest-earning video game Kickstarter campaigns, the aftermath is an unfortunate circus of delays and misinformation: After the first in-development screenshots were shown, some fans were displeased with the new 3D visuals, as it deviated from the 2D style suggested by the original concept art; a handful of features promised during the campaign were announced to have been removed due to development conflicts; a second crowdfunding campaign for additional DLC was held prior to the game’s release, long before fans received the playable Beta; partnered with the September delay, Comcept announced a Kickstarter for another game before releasing the previous title- Red Ash.

The previous September 2015 release date for Mighty No. 9 was delayed into February 2016 due to a multitude of bugs within the online modes; a statement from Comcept revealed the core game to have been complete, however the abundance of problems with the online modes would have had “a direct affect on enjoyment of the game”. The development team later promised the Feb. 2016 delay would be the final before its official release, however Mighty No. 9 is now delayed into Spring 2016.

A new statement from Inafune reveals Mighty No. 9‘s network engine to be obsolete; updates are no longer being issued, forcing the team to manually reprogram and code parts of the engine, all while dealing with the current online matchmaking bugs. With Mighty No. 9 releasing on such a large number of platforms- nearly every console and handheld are supported- each version must be handled with a unique approach:

“The reason for the delay is rooted in bugs inside the network modes, and specifically problems with matchmaking. There are two large reasons for this problem, one of them being the large number of platforms supported (the solution for each platform is slightly different) and the other stems from the fact that the engine we are using is no longer being updated which means adjustments for matchmaking and online code are being made manually (actually reprogramming parts of the engine by the dev team themselves).”

Mighty No. 9 will release for PC/Mac/Linux, PS4, Xbox One, PS3, 360, Wii U, PS Vita and the 3DS sometime in Spring 2016. The animated series is currently expected to debut in Q2 2016.

Source: Comcept
Image courtesy of Comcept, Inti Creates