Uncharted 4: A Thief's End delayed by a month until April 2016, developers announce

The release of the game has been pushed back from 18 March to 27 April 2016

A preview screenshot of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (Sony/Naughty Dog)

The developers of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End have announced that the game has been delayed until 26 April 2016, when the follow-up to 2011's hugely acclaimed Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, will be released in North America.

Uncharted 4, a PlayStation 4 exclusive, originally had a release date of 18 March, but Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, game directors at Sony-owned studio Naughty Dog, announced on Wednesday that the launch date would have to be postponed to give them more time to finish the game.

In a statement, the pair said Uncharted 4 was wrapping up and looks to be a "proper send off" for Nathan Drake, the main character of the popular series of third-person shooters.

However, they added: "The bad news is that we need a bit more time to finish the game so that it meets our standards and vision."

"This is our largest Uncharted game to date, and the team has been working incredibly hard to meet the challenge of closing out the game’s development in a timely manner. However, as we approached our final deadlines and started wrapping up the game’s levels, we realized that several key sequences needed extra resources to bring them to the finish line."

"After carefully considering all of our options, we decided to extend our schedule, making sure that we get a few more polish passes before submitting our gold master (the final disc for manufacturing)."

They offered their "sincere apology" to fans of the award-winning series, but said Uncharted 4 would be "the most ambitious installment" yet.

Uncharted players won't be left in the lurch, however - Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, a remastered version of the previous three games, was released in October, and has taken the number 10 spot in this year's Christmas games chart.

Uncharted 3 has an average score of 92 out of 100 on Metacritic, and received a huge number of Game of the Year awards from gaming magazines and websites - so if Uncharted 4 is just as good, gamers hopefully won't mind waiting a little longer to get their hands on it.