Gorgeous Ghibli-esque exploration adventure Europa delayed to this “summer”

Europa, the absolutely lovely looking Ghibli-inspired exploration adventure from developer Helder Pinto, has been delayed and will now likely launch on Steam this “summer”.

Europa – a “peaceful game of adventure, exploration, and meditation” on a terraformed moon in Jupiter’s shadow – has been in the works since 2017 (Pinto, a former principle art lead at Blizzard has described it as a “passion project”), but it finally got a release date at the end of last year, when the game was said to be launching on 16th April 2024.

However, with that date just weeks away now, Pinto has made the decision to push back Europa’s release by a couple of months, “probably until summer”.

“Europa began as a side project I created alone,” Pinto wrote in a message announcing the delay on Steam, “and in the years since it has grown more than I ever could have dreamed, though we are still working in the evenings and weekends around our day jobs. I’m very proud of what we’ve done together – which is why I can’t stand the thought of releasing the game before it’s in the condition we want it to be.

In a video accompanying the statement, Pinto added, “We want to make sure we tell [our] story right through gameplay, so we’ve been working on our cinematics a lot and I’ve also been working a lot on the pacing of the game.”

“I know a lot of people have been excited for the launch,” Pinto’s statement concluded, “and I’d like to apologise, and ask that you kindly hold on just a little longer. I promise the extra time will be well spent, and I really believe the final work will be worth the wait. We’ll let you know the new date as soon as we’re 100% confident we’re ready to launch.”

Europa is already shaping up to be something special so taking a little more time to get things just right sounds like absolutely the right course of action. And if you haven’t checked it already, Europa’s demo – which Eurogamer contributor Liv Ngan was quite taken with earlier the year – is still available to play on Steam.