program 2 from early 2020/q3 2021 and then to 2022 and finally into early 2023. guilty gear strive from late 2020 to june 11, 2021. arcade version has been delayed indefinitely in japan. warframe major update called duviri paradox from 2020 to 2021 halo infinite from 2020 to december 8, 2021 deathloop from 2020 to september 14, 2021 the stanley parable: ultra deluxe from 2020 to april 27, 2022 sky: children of the light for nintendo switch from 2020 to june 29, 2021 no more heroes iii from 2020 to august 27, 2021 kena: bridge of spirits from 2020 to september 21, 2021 outriders from late 2020 to april 1, 2021 the medium from december 10, 2020 to january 28, 2021 harvest moon: one world from 2020 to march 2, 2021 in north america and march 5, 2021 in europe the idolmaster: starlit season from 2020 to 2021 digimon survive from 2020 to 2021 and finally into july 28, 2022 for japan and a day later for the rest of the world. seven knights: time wanderer from june 2020 to november 5, 2020 monstrum physical edition from may 22, 2020 to october 23, 2020 dragon marked for death version 3.0 patch for nintendo switch from april 21, 2020 to april 23, 2020 everyday: today's menu for the emiya family from may 2020 to april 28, 2021 crossfire x from 2020 to february 10, 2022 cuphead: the delicious last course dlc from 2020 to june 30, 2022 rainbow six extraction from 2020 to january 20, 2022. additionally, the original title of rainbow six quarantine was renamed to avoid association with the pandemic. gran turismo 7 from 2021 to march 4, 2022 tales of arise from 2020 to september 10, 2021 the king of fighters xv from 2021 to february 17, 2022 god of war ragnarök from 2021 to november 9, 2022 ghostwire: tokyo from q3 2021 to march 25, 2022 just cause: mobile from 2022 to 2023 far cry 6 from february 18 to october 7, 2021 life is strange: remastered collection from september 10, 2021 to february 1, 2022 battlefield 2042 from october 22 to november 19, 2021 some games also received early releases in certain regions: at gamestop in the united states, doom eternal was released a day prior to its release date to separate the crowds from those purchasing animal crossing: new horizons (as both games were officially released on 20 march). afl evolution 2 was released on april 16, 2020, a week prior to its original release date. to reduce physical contact, physical copies of the game were initially sold through online retailers only. final fantasy vii remake was shipped early to europe and australia so the players living in the "countries that are currently facing the biggest disruption" would be able to play the game on its launch day. the second chapter of deltarune, which was originally intended to be released as part of the full game (the release date of which has not yet been announced as of march 21, 2022), was released for free on september 17, 2021. some games were cancelled: deliver us the moon for nintendo switch, having been scheduled for a mid-2020 release. doom eternal's invasion mode was cancelled in favor of a single-player horde mode. minecraft earth, which released as early access in october 2019, closed on june 30, 2021. game publishers and developers have expressed concerns that further extensions of the movement control orders from the pandemic may incur additional delays. one major factor that may cause delays is the ability to capture voice acting without access to studios during physical distancing for society, even though some of members have considered working from residence remotely to avoid troubling situations. an example of this happened with the western release of persona 5 strikers whose voice acting in english was meant to start in april 2020 but was delayed due to the pandemic. the actors later received audio equipment from atlus so that they could work at home. services as much of the world's population have been quarantined due to the pandemic, video game playing and other internet use has increased significantly. steam had over 23 million concurrent players during march 2020, surpassing all previous records while over three billion hours of content were watched on twitch over the first quarter of 2020, a 20% increase from the previous year's. microsoft reported a substantial increase in users of its xbox game pass service in the months of march and april 2020, bringing it to over 10 million subscribers. geforce now capacity was temporarily exhausted in europe before additional server capacity was added. the additional bandwidth from video games and other internet services created concerns that critical bandwidth would not be available for medical and other key infrastructure elements necessary to mitigate the spread of sars-cov-2. to help reduce demand during peak hours, the akamai content delivery network for many video games and major digital storefronts such as xbox live, playstation network, and steam capped download speeds and encouraged the users to download at off-peak hours. during quarantine and lockdown, ubisoft announced an update for just dance 2020 to keep players active: customers who owned the game could access a month of the just dance unlimited service. ubisoft also announced in its official forum that the second event entitled "power gala", which was part of the second season "feel the power" in just dance 2020, had been postponed. the developer explained that the company wanted to protect its team due to the pandemic, and that "although team still work hard to make our servers work as smoothly as possible at home", this needed to be resolved by postponing the content. two tracks from just dance unlimited were made free to make up for the delay. retailers gamestop and its canadian subsidiary, eb games, came under criticism for its overall response to the pandemic. notably, it received widespread criticism when, after numerous states and provinces issued "stay at home" or "shelter in place" orders requiring non-essential businesses to close up starting in march 2020, it considered its stores an essential business, stating that they provided a "significant need for technology solutions". the chain later revised this decision, closing most locations and leaving only select stores open to provide drive-up delivery of online or by-phone orders to the customers. cex closed all its corporate stores in the united kingdom on 23 march and asked the franchises to do the same. game x change, a regional game retailer based in arkansas, attracted criticism for keeping the retail locations open in areas with stay at home orders. industry trade bodies the japanese game ratings body computer entertainment rating organization was forced to close operations from early april through 7 may, and upon reopening, implemented appropriate controls that reduced work hours, which is expected to delay some releases in japan as they await a rating for retail release. industry support of mitigation and relief efforts nintendo of america donated 9,500 n95-rated face masks for first responders in the washington state region in march after their facility was shuttered during washington's stay-at-home program. twitch hosted a 12-hour charity stream on 28 march 2020, to raise money for the covid-19 solidarity response fund. the stream featured games, music and sports celebrities playing games like fortnite and uno. several game publishers worked with who to support its #playaparttogether campaign, encouraging players to continue social engagement in video games via online games instead of through physical means. eighteen companies initially joined the effort when announced in march 2020, and at least forty more had joined by early april. games done quick, a charity-driven speedrunning event, had to move its planned june 2020 event due to the pandemic, but announced it would run a fully online "corona relief done quick" event from 17 to 19 april 2020, with money raised going to direct relief. the event raised over us$400,000. humble bundle offered a "conquer covid-19 bundle" of games and e-books from 31 march to 7 april 2020 with all proceeds going to direct relief, international rescue committee, doctors without borders, and partners in health. over 200,000 bundles were sold raising over us$6.5 million for the charities. the association for uk interactive entertainment worked with the uk's department for digital, culture, media and sport to push the government's campaign of "stay home, save lives" into their members' video games that supported dynamic messaging like within in-game menu screens. former nintendo of america president reggie fils-aimé and video games journalist harold goldberg hosted talking games with reggie and harold, a seven-part podcast, to raise charitable funds for the new york video game critics circle to help mentor lower-income and under-served students in new york city impacted by the pandemic. idea factory international held an online charity auction of an official hyperdimension neptunia illustration by series artist tsunako. after the auction ended, they donated the money from the auction to help unicef usa's effort in fighting the virus. some game developers and publishers pledged to donate revenue generated by purchases to covid-19 relief efforts: rockstar games donated five percent of revenue generated by in-game purchases in grand theft auto online and red dead online in april and may 2020. its nine worldwide studios donated to local charities, including city harvest in london and new york, the centre for addiction and mental health foundation, boston museum of science, akshaya patra foundation, connecticut food bank, national black nurses association, and black girls code. ink stories donated 25 percent of the revenue from sales of the steam version of fire escape. popular games during the pandemic with the need to stay inside one's home to avoid infection, many gamers flocked to online games as a substitute for social interactions they would otherwise miss. animal crossing: new horizons was especially particular, with people around the world turning to the game's recreation of ordinary daily life activities and social networking features as a substitute for the normalcy disrupted by the pandemic. fall guys and among us were particularly popular during this time, with the former being released during the pandemic and the latter receiving a surge of popularity. some non-online games were also thematically compared to the pandemic, such as the longing and presentable liberty. microsoft flight simulator, first released in august 2020, has been considered popular during the pandemic, as many saw it as a safer alternative to traveling. notable deaths john horton conway, mathematician and creator of conway's game of life. rick may, voice actor; including the soldier in team fortress 2.