Blindsided would be an apt word to use here as Ubisoft announced yesterday that their highly anticipated open world action game, Watch_Dogs and open world racer, The Crew have been delayed into the Spring 2014 window. What’s so surprising about The Watch_Dogs announcement is that the game was scheduled for release in about a months time. Definitely a close/last minute call. The Crew didn’t have a solid release date, but was expected before April 2014.

Here’s a snippet of the Watch_Dogs decision which you can read in full over on the Ubisoft Blog:

“We know a lot of you are probably wondering: Why now? We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune each detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.”

I don’t know about you, but Spring 2014 is shaping up to be a real heavy hitter with Titanfall and now Watch_Dogs joining the mix. With a number of high-profile games still without solid release dates, it wouldn’t surprise me to again have a very busy spring 2014 waiting. What this also probably means is that Tom Clancy’s The Division, another highly anticipated Ubisoft title, will likely be a late 2014 release. I can’t see Ubisoft wanting to double up major titles in the same launch window.

While I’m disappointed at this news, I respect Ubisoft Montreal for making (what must have been) a very difficult decision. More development time means the game will be even better once it’s available.