Mask of the Rose, my most-anticipated game of 2023, just got delayed

Mask of the Rose, Failbetter Games’ eldritch dating sim and my most-anticipated game of 2023 (opens in new tab), has been hit by another delay. Originally intended for an autumn release last year, it got punted to this April (opens in new tab) after the studio noticed how much stress its devs were under, and now it’s scooted back a little further to June 8 this year.

“Being a perspicacious kind of person, you’ll notice that the 8th of June is very much not in April,” said Failbetter in an announcement on Steam (opens in new tab), and it’s apparently down to bugs in the game’s UI. Although Failbetter thought the game could work well enough with regular “visual novel interface conventions” at first, playtesting revealed that changes would need to be made to help players “navigate this vast web of choices.”