Kingdom Hearts III
Kingdom Hearts III will likely send hundreds upon thousands of gamers into a nostalgic daydream when they finally get their hands on it. Kingdom Hearts’ reach stretched far into the childhoods of many, and as such, people are pretty darn hyped for Kingdom Hearts III. And, now that there’s a Toy Story-themed world in there, we can’t exactly blame you.
If we’re to believe Square Enix’s D23 2017 trailer for the game, the wait is almost over, too. Currently slated to release sometime in 2018, in a year’s time, we may have already watched the credits roll. We think not, however. You see, following the insane amount of time players waited for Final Fantasy XV, we get the feeling that Square won’t let this one into the wild until it’s absolutely perfect. And that’s great news for fans… IF you don’t mind waiting.
Even when we do finally get a more specific release date, we wouldn’t hedge our bets on it actually releasing. Remember, this is the same publisher that hosted a massive event to reveal the release date for Final Fantasy XV, only to go ahead and delay it by a few months later on. As much as we’re praying to the Disney gods to finally play Kingdom Hearts III in 2018, we just can’t go through that pain again.
Crackdown 3
Crackdown 3 may be one of the titles we’ve known about for the longest, and yet somehow still don’t have. Announced back at Microsoft’s 2014 E3 conference, the game boasted its cloud-powered destructive environments and more of the classic gameplay fans of the series had come to know and love. Thanks to the cloud, however, everything was going to be on a much larger, more explosive, destructive scale than ever before, especially when you throw multiplayer into the mix.
Unfortunately, Crackdown 3 hasn’t yet been able to bring its insane levels of destruction to our Xbox Ones just yet. Originally set for a 2016 release, the title was pushed back to Nov. 7, 2017 to coincide with the release of Microsoft’s powerhouse Xbox One X. It then got delayed yet again to an unspecified spring 2018 release window, and that’s where we are now.
But this makes no sense when, just a few weeks back, we finally found out that Sea of Thieves launches worldwide on Mar. 20. Considering both Crackdown 3 and Sea of Thieves are currently Microsoft’s biggest exclusives (that we know about, at least), it seems odd to release them just a few months apart, especially during the spring months. It’s not unheard of, with Sony having released a bunch of its own exclusives toward the start of this year, but we’re not convinced. Plus, all of this tech that powers Crackdown 3’s multiplayer areas is seriously impressive, and there’s yet to be any major details or preview events going on for the game. Perhaps Microsoft is holding its cards close to its chest, but we’ll believe a spring 2018 release date for Crackdown 3 when we’ve got it in our hands.
Red Dead Redemption 2
There’s something unsettling about the relative silence from Rockstar Games. With Red Dead Redemption 2 set to release sometime in spring 2018, many other publishers would be really making a song and dance about what’s set to be one of the biggest titles of the year.
That’s what makes us think that things might not be going just according to plan with Red Dead Redemption 2. No, we’re not saying that the game is going to be a train wreck. In fact, we think the opposite, and that’s exactly why it’ll likely get delayed out of its relatively early 2018 release window.
Why? Because Rockstar Games has an esteemed lineage of releases behind it and it’s not going to let Red Dead Redemption 2 be the blot just for the sake of rushing it out. Rockstar takes an incredible amount of pride in the games it puts out. GTA V was delayed several times on both console and PC, as too was its online Heists (arguably one of the highlights of GTA Online).
Shenmue III
Shenmue III isn’t going to be at the top of every player’s wishlist for 2018, but fans of the older series will be clamoring to help out Ryo on his quest to find his father’s killer in 1980’s China. Currently slated for a Q3/Q4 2018 release, Ys Net still has time to polish things up and finish the game ahead of this release window. We’re not convinced they’ll make it, though.
Shenmue III shares something in common with a bunch of games that all got delayed, too. Yooka-Laylee? Delayed. Mighty No. 9? Delayed (and terrible). Star Citizen? Delayed so many times we’ve lost count. That’s right, Shenmue III was successfully Kickstarted following its reveal at Sony’s 2015 E3 conference. Huzzah for fans, I guess!
Unfortunately, though, Shenmue III has already been delayed out of its 2017 release window into that late 2018 release window we mentioned earlier. As the most-funded Kickstarter video game project of all time, Ys Net has some serious expectations to live up to, especially with this being the Shenmue series. Taking all of this into account, we wouldn’t be surprised to sadly see Shenmue III slip out of 2018 and fall back even further into the start of 2019. Here’s hoping we’re wrong, though.
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