The Coronavirus continues to spread across the globe impacting several countries and their industries. Of course, the gaming industry hasn't been spared, from this outbreak, as it has affected releases for highly anticipated titles. The latest casualty is the RPG smash-hit "The Outer Worlds" which has been delayed for the Nintendo Switch console due to the impact.

A safe play

The development team, at Virtuos, closed their offices in an effort to prevent the Coronavirus from negatively impacting the progress of the Switch port. The game's publisher Private Division revealed the bad news via a tweet but assures the public that members of the team are healthy and safe from infection.

The Nintendo Switch port to "The Outer Worlds" was slated for release on March 6 as revealed by the publisher just last week. The port will receive a physical release in the form of a Switch cartridge. The novel Coronavirus is a respiratory illness that originated in Wuhan, China in December 2019. It was identified after forty-one infected people were stricken with pneumonia-like symptoms that were initially unidentifiable.

In related news, Atari has delayed its upcoming console the Atari VCS due to the Coronavirus outbreak impacting the production of its latest dev kits in China. The console was also being prepared for release in March. The Atari VCS has already suffered from several delays prior to the emergency; mostly for the sake of making improvements to the hardware.

Best RPG of 2019

"The Outer Worlds" is an action-style role-playing game that was first launched for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on October 25, 2019. The game was originally developed by Obsidian Entertainment, best known for ground-breaking RPG titles like "Fallout: New Vegas" and "South Park: The Stick of Truth." The story is set in outer space and spans across several alien worlds, some of which contain human colonies.

The player can access these worlds from a hub onboard a space ship. Once on-world, the player can then recruit other characters and engage in combat or socialize--all while leveling up and acquiring new resources.

Since its launch, "The Outer Worlds" has gained critical acclaim and currently holds an aggregated review score of 82 on Metacritic. The game has also won three awards that include 'Best Original Game' at the Game Critics Awards; 'Best RPG' at the Titanium Awards; and 'Big Apple Award for Best Game of the Year' at the New York Game Awards. The Nintendo Switch port will undoubtedly attract more players given the device's hybrid design that allows for mobile gameplay.