The PS5 is thriving partially because it's surprisingly stacked with interesting third-party titles, both current and upcoming. For instance, the newest Sony State of Play heavily featured Kojima Production's Death Stranding: Director's Cut and gave other titles including Jett and Lost Judgment plenty of presentation time as well. Another indie title coming to PS5 is Sifu, the martial arts game from Sloclap. So far, Sifu looks pretty compelling, focusing on dynamic combat and the player's learning experience. Every time they die, they'll come back a little older and with more knowledge of how to approach the threat ahead of them.
Sifu looks like a compelling PS4 and PS5 title, worthy of a lengthy gameplay trailer at the new State of Play. While it didn't reveal much news, it did spotlight one important thing. Sloclap originally planned on launching Sifu by the end of 2021, but it's delaying the game until early 2022 instead. It's too bad that martial arts fans have to wait until next year to play Sifu, but there's plenty of reason to believe that this delay is a good thing. Although there's the obvious benefit of game polish, delaying Sifu into 2022 also means that it might be able to dodge a competitive holiday season dense with game releases.
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Odds are good that Sifu's delay has to do with its state of development. Sifu was never offered a specific release window to begin with, but as the year wore on, it became clear that Sloclap was aiming for the end of the year. With that in mind, Sifu's delay wasn't last minute in any way. Instead, Sloclap had the foresight to delay Sifu before it risked dropping into crunch time. Announcing the new release window so far in advance suggests that Sloclap is well aware of the fact that Sifu needs a little more time, and it's good to see the studio treating its game so well.
Development time isn't the only benefit Sifu gets out of this, though. The rest of 2021 is a bit of a minefield of major video game releases that Sifu might struggle to navigate. Throughout the rest of the year, something big is coming out most months. For the PS5, the latter half of summer 2021 is already dominated by other third-party titles, including Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Deathloop from Arkane and Bethesda. Later in the year, there's plenty of other games to contend with, from Far Cry 6 to the next-gen Grand Theft Auto 5 port. It could be hard for a small indie studio like Sloclap to make a splash.
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The end of a year is always a big time for games. AAA studios and indie studios alike are always tempted to compete for the holiday season market with major releases. Sifu might have been planning to do just that, but circumstances indicate that it might not have come out as the top dog at the end of 2021. After all, Sifu can hardly get as much publicity as the likes of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, yet another holiday 2021 title. If it waits until 2022 to release, then there'll probably be fewer big names to compete with. That could give Sifu a greater chance to shine.
Sifu already does a lot of interesting things on its own. Its combat looks fluid and satisfying, and the seed of a compelling story already lies in the protagonist's mysterious amulet, which allows him to revive from the dead at the cost of years of his life. Ultimately, if Sifu succeeds, it'll be at the merit of those qualities, rather than simply thanks to its release date. Even so, it's important and valuable that Sloclap chose a new release window that's a little safer.
Sifu releases in early 2022 for PC, PS4, and PS5.