Today Ubisoft have sadly had to delay the release of all versions of Watch_Dogs, pushing it to a Spring release in 2014.

As an apology the team has given the following statement to clarify the delay of the game.

"Our ambition from the start with Watch_Dogs has been to deliver something that embodies what we wanted to see in the next-generation of gaming. It is with this in mind that we've made the tough decision to delay the release until Spring 2014.

We know a lot of you are probably wondering 'why now?' We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune every detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you. We thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the way you respond on the web, at events, press conferences and during other opportunities we have to interact. Your passion is what drives us.

We can’t wait to see you in Chicago next Spring. We are confident you’ll love this game as much as we love working on it."

In the meantime you can watch 14 minutes of gameplay from Watch_Dogs if you haven't seen it already.

Of course the delay couldn’t really come at a worse time, taking one of the launch titles of both next gen platforms off the fairly small lists of games coming out for the Playstation 4 and Xbox One on their dates of release. However it does of course put more of a spotlight on Ubisoft’s other release; Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, especially with it’s recent change of release date in the other direction.