One of the most hotly anticipated games of the fall and what was expected to be the starting point of a new anchor franchise for Ubisoft has been pushed back by a few months.

Yesterday, Ubisoft made the surprise announcement that Watch Dogs would be delayed until the spring of 2014 to ensure that the game met their quality standards.

In a release on their blog, Ubisoft explained the decision to delay the game saying:

We know a lot of you are probably wondering: Why now? We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune each detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.

I saw the game in action on a PlayStation 4 back in August at Fan Expo in what Ubi employees would only describe as an early build. In the hands-off demo, the game seemed to run at a high framerate with the same spectacular looking graphics that Ubi has been showing off for a while. There were a few framerate hiccups and glitches (including characters and cars clipping through a bridge) but nothing overly indicative of major problems that were a long way from being solved.

If the folks at Ubisoft say that they need the extra months to make it perfect, I guess we have to run with that for now. After all, all we’ve seen up until now are vertical slices of the game. However, it wouldn’t be shocking if it’s later revealed that Watch Dogs was moved so that it and AC4 didn’t cannibalize each other’s sales.

Source: Ubisoft