The Mega Man-inspired Mighty No. 9 was delayed in August, from its planned launch date of 15 September to sometime in the first quarter of 2016. The promised demo, however, was still set to be released that day—which was yesterday—to Kickstarter backers. But it's still nowhere to be seen. Instead, there's a little note stuck at the bottom of yesterday's update at MightyNo9.com stating that it will probably be delayed too.
The post is ostensibly about the Kimokimo Cup Robot Design Contest, with information about submission details, design rules, and a little note about how entrants will retain the rights to their designs unless Comcept opts to "re-interpret" them, in which case it will own the rights instead. That strikes me as pretty skeevy in its own right, but what we're really here to see is contained in the final paragraph.
"Finally, we know that all of our fans are looking forward to the Special Demo Version we are preparing, and we just ask that you be a little more patient. The team is working on it, but some issues popped up regarding the distribution method so there is a good chance it will not be ready to launch by the 15th. We are really sorry for the inconvenience," it says. "As soon as we have more info, we will let everyone know immediately."
The "good chance" has obviously become fact, since it is now September 16 and there is no demo and no new launch date. It's the latest blow to the game, which raised $3.85 million on Kickstarter in 2013 (and more than $4 million in total), but has stumbled—badly, some would say—since.
Thanks, GameInformer.
Update: Comcept has issued a statement saying that while the Mighty No. 9 demo was finished, the studio ran into "some very last-minute and unexpected complications" with regard to distributing it through Steam. As a result, it decided to release a DRM-free demo instead, and to do away with the time limit that had been built into it.
"Because this demo is exclusively for you, our backers, we still needed to have a way to get the demo to each of you individually and we’ve been looking into all the options. We’re currently working with our partners at Humble Bundle to prepare the demo for delivery through their service," the studio wrote. "Unfortunately this change in our plans means that the release of the demo is going to be slightly delayed as we are currently working on retooling the demo for a DRM-free release."
An updated release date for the demo hasn't been announced.
