Gloomwood (opens in new tab), New Blood Interactive’s “Thief with guns (opens in new tab)” stealth-action game, has been delayed. Not for very long, fortunately—it’s now slated to launch into early access on September 6, a postponement of just three weeks. The whole thing would be entirely unremarkable, in fact, if not for the way that New Blood announced it—or, more to the point, who announced it.
Malcolm McDowell (opens in new tab) is a legendary English actor, known for his roles in movies and television (opens in new tab): A Clockwork Orange, Caligula, Cat People, Star Trek: Generations, and dozens of others. He also has a surprisingly extensive videogame career (opens in new tab), with appearances in games including in Wing Commander 3 and 4, Fallout 3, God of War 3, and The Elder Scrolls Online. And now, he has made what I’m pretty sure is his first-ever videogame game delay announcement.
We’re sorry to have to delay Gloomwood a few weeks, however we’re sure you can wait. But don’t just take it from me! Listen to legendary star of stage and screen, Sir Malcolm McDowell. pic.twitter.com/lFgayx1xtOAugust 2, 2022
“I am now speaking in particular to all the Gloomwood fans around the world,” McDowell intones in the video.” These guys that make this game want to apologize for the short delay. Yeah, right. But it’s only a few short weeks. For God’s sake, you can wait until then.
“Anyway, listen, Gloomwood fans, get ready to anticipate—it’s coming your way in a few weeks and when it gets there, you’re gonna love it.”
You might naturally be curious about how exactly a man of Sir Malcolm’s stature ended up announcing a videogame delay. It’s not entirely clear, but McDowell is on Cameo (opens in new tab), a site that lets fans purchase personalized messages from celebrities—and New Blood boss Dave Oshry said shortly after the announcement (opens in new tab) went up that “someone needs to take away my Cameo account.”
As for why exactly Gloomwood’s early access launch has been delayed, the publisher said in a separate, more detailed announcement on Steam (opens in new tab) that “unforeseen game development issues” have come up over the past few months, and that several developers working on the game have also been diagnosed with Covid-19.
“It seems that ever since we announced the release date we’ve been hit with so many issues you would think the immersive sim curse is indeed real, but we will power through it,” New Blood wrote. “This extra time will allow us to make sure all these issues are sorted, add extra polish, and give some space to the major update for one of our other games, Ultrakill (opens in new tab), which is now releasing its second act on August 16th.”