It was first announced that the next game in the Metal Gear Solid universe would be not a video game but a board one. The release date announced initially was August 2020. But now IDW Games, the publisher of the project, officially informs that MGS board game release date is delayed – at least until summer 2021.

It’s not the first delay in the project’s history. If as planned, the game would have been released in 2019, but then pushed to 2020. It’s a tradition for the series to push release dates to achieve the quality the developers want. And this is one of the reasons the series is so successful throughout decades.

While the recognized genius Hideo Kojima is no more involved, there’s still a big name behind this game. This time it’s Emerson Matsuuchi, a famous game designer known for Specter Ops and Volt. What else he shares with Kojima is perfectionism: Matsuuchi also releases his projects when finally ready, and this may mean pushing release dates.

As for gameplay, it would feature both the characters we love (Solid Snake as well as Meryl Silverburgh, Dr. Hal Otacon Emerich, or Grey Fox) and the stealth mechanics in the gameplay. The box will contain the board, small but detailed tokens, and cards to play. It’s quite a pricey one: the box will cost the solid $125, unless you have prepurchased it. Then you’ll have it for the $109 it was before the delay.

Now the game is in the final testing phase. All it may take is a little rebalancing; still we will not know until after the release whether it needs any refinement. It may change again, though, after the release of the digital version on Tabletopia or Tabletop Simulator. The digital version is not so likely to satisfy true fans, but it may work as the final polygon for massive testing.