The Daily Populous Tuesday November 26th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by eurogamer.net and submitted by YouAreNotMeLiar

Rift of the NecroDancer has finally got a firm release date, but it's been pushed back into next year.

Now, instead of a late 2024 release date, the game will be out on 5th February 2025. To achieve this, developer Brace Yourself Games has "decoupled" the Steam and console launches, meaning this release date is for PC only and other versions will follow.

"To hit a 2024 launch date, we would have needed to do some serious crunch to polish and bug-fix," the developer stated in a new blog post. "Here at Brace Yourself Games, we're all about a sustainable groove, not the grind. We believe in making awesome games without sacrificing our team's well-being.

"We decided to avoid cutting certain features to hit a 2024 launch date and possibly being forced into releasing something half-baked. So, we're taking a deep breath, stepping back, and giving Rift of the NecroDancer just a LITTLE bit more time in the oven."

The game was previously delayed last year, but in the blog the studio lists some of the improvements it's been making.

That includes an "impossible" difficult mode (though it assures it's not actually impossible), improving the readability of off-beat rhythms, tweaking various modes and challenges, revamping bosses and story elements, and even adding custom music tools.

Much of this feedback has arisen from the game's free demo, which remains available to test out.

Rift of the NecroDancer will follow Crypt of the NecroDancer, the rhythm dungeon crawler that spawned Zelda spin-off Cadence of Hyrule.

However, this follow-up sees series protagonist Cadence engaging in musical combat as a more traditional rhythm game.

It was first revealed back in 2022.