After much deliberation, Cygames has finally given us a firm release date for Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, where it will be out on 24 February 2021. The announcement was made during a special livestream just a while ago.

For context, Uma Musume: Pretty Derby was first announced in 2016 and was originally scheduled for a launch in winter 2018. Of course, that never happened and the game was pushed back for polishing. The team issued an apology and thanked fans for supporting the franchise still.

At first glance, the game seems to be a cross between the famed iDOLM@STER series (it’s the same producer after all) and your traditional horse racing game. Akihiro Ishihara, who previously served as iDOLM@STER game series director left Bandai Namco to pursue his dreams to work on this so it will be interesting to see if it was a good decision. At least that was the narrative when the paragraph was previously written in 2018. Said director has since departed the company, although the game, as it looks, is still being worked on. See more gameplay here, and drop by the official website for details and further information as always.

The game definitely has a monumental task ahead of it to win over an audience that have been denied the game for a long time already, with many new distractions since. With the visionary behind the game gone, it would definitely be interesting to see how the game will turn out now. While upsetting, it is definitely a good move by Cygames to delay the game in retrospect, since rushing a half baked product would be more detrimental to the franchise than having it come out late. In any case, the second season of the anime has also been confirmed, so there is that to look forward to as well, given how well received the first season was.