'Project Cars' release date update: delayed again for the third time

Bandai Namco Europe

For the third time, Bandai Namco Games has delayed the release of "Project Cars," its fast-paced, action-packed cross between a serious sim and a fun racing game. On the news portal of Bandai Games Europe, a statement dated March 11 announced that the title's release date has been moved to May this year. 

According to Ian Bell, Head of Studio at Bandai's partner developer Slightly Mad Studios, "Project Cars" is the grandest and most intricately detailed of all the racing games they have developed.

"Despite therefore the game being 99.9% complete, the remaining 0.1% attending to small issues and bugs has been tricky to anticipate," he said. "We're absolutely dedicated to delivering a ground-breaking experience and by targeting mid-May fans can be assured that's what they'll receive." 

Slightly Mad Studios originally slated the racing sim game to be made available in November 2014. A month before the release, the title was pushed to March this year, and then a week before the new schedule, another date was announced, this time in April. 

Bandai Namco and Slightly Mad Studios' latest announcement came hours after another developer, Naughty Dog, said that it will be postponing the Playstation 4 release of the next installment in its critically-acclaimed "Uncharted" series to Spring 2016. For the eagerly waiting fans of "Project Cars," however, Slightly Mad Studios is offering gifts and free content for all players as compensation. 

Bell added, "And since the gaming community is our primary focus and has always been at the heart of the project during development, we would like to offer some free content to all players as compensation for this short delay and as acknowledgement of how grateful we are."

The freebies will be available from day one of the launch and will be revealed before the title releases in May.

"Project Cars" will be available for the PS4, Xbox One, and Windows PC.