Bandai Namco just announced that the upcoming JRPG by Level-5 Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom has been delayed into next year.

To be precise, the game's new release date is on January 19th, 2018 for PS4 and PC, both in North America and Europe. Incidentally, the delay also applies to Japan, that will get the highly anticipated JRPG on the same day as the west, as revealed at the end of a re-release of the E3 trailer subtitled in Japanese (which you can see at the bottom of the post).

A video was also published, starring Level-5 President and Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom Director Akihiro Hino, as he explains the reasons behind the delay.

The accompanying press release also included an additional message and apology from Hino-san:

“We have decided that more development time is required in order to deliver the full Ni no Kuni II experience to our fans. I deeply apologize to those who have been looking forward to the game's release. Please rest assured, however, that we will continue to strive to provide a deep and satisfying single player experience that our fans can look forward to enjoying.”

Hino-san also clarified an answer he provided in a video interview at E3 (that has been since taken down by Bandai Namco). Having misunderstood the question, the mentioned that the game would have multiplayer, but apparently he was just talking about online announcements of in-game events. The game won't include multiplayer gameplay, and Level-5 is focusing on single player.

You can check the message out below, making sure to have close caption activated to be able to read the message in English. If you want to see more, you can also enjoy the E3 trailer, a colorful batch of screenshot and more gameplay, and a second gallery.