With titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops 4 already confirmed for a fall 2018 window, as well as several other titles looking to release within the same time frame, it's inevitable that some publishers decide to delay their titles to a less crowded slot. Metro Exodus is one of those titles. During their latest financial report, publisher THQ Nordic announced that they're delaying the game to Q1 2019.
A statement from the team clarifies why they've chosen to delay the title:
The development of Metro Exodus is progressing well; we are all really excited by what we are seeing. We have been constantly reviewing the game's progress to ensure that we deliver a product that gamers and fans of the Metro series want and deserve, as well as keeping an eye on announcements from our competitor products. We want everyone to be able to experience what is the most ambitious Metro game to date at its absolute best and therefore we have taken the decision to move the release date to Q1 2019.
We know that this will be disappointing news for fans that had hoped to play the game this year, but also know that you will appreciate the results that this additional development time and new release date will bring.
While the news will indeed be disappointing, the team has promised that we'll see brand new gameplay from "a never before seen game environment" when the title appears at E3 next month, so at least there's something to look forward to while we wait. We can now expect to see the game appear in stores between January and March 2019.