Summary
It has been a long time coming, but Ken Levine’s next game,Judas, is reportedly going to launch sometime in 2025. Set aboard the Mayflower, a generation ship transporting humanity’s last remnants to Proxima Centauri,Judas' narrative centers on Judas, a woman who disrupts the ship’s societal order by revealing that its leaders — the “Big Three” — are actually machines. After her death and subsequent resurrection as a 3D-printed clone, Judas finds herself as the only human in a society controlled by computers that groom residents to be model citizens. Her actions spark a revolution aboard the Mayflower, challenging the ship’s leaders: Tom, who wants to save humanity; Nefertiti, who aims to transform humanity into machines; and their adopted daughter, Hope, who desires to delete herself due to her inability to cope with her true identity.
Up to this point,Judashas been expected to launch sometime this year, making it yet another anticipated title on 2025’s increasingly long list. However, now that the year has begun, a 2025 release for the game is looking less likely by the day, especially sinceJudas' projected release window is quickly approaching and an explicit release date has yet to be nailed down. In light of that, there’s really no telling whetherJudastruly will launch this year or if it will be hit with a delay that brings it into next year. At the same time, there are other ways thatJudascould make a 2025 launch happen, even if it doesn’t meet its current goal.
Judas May Not Make It Out Alive in 2025
Judas' Current Projected Launch Date Doesn’t Seem Likely to Happen
Much of the concern behind whetherJudaswill be released in 2025 revolves around the short amount of time between now and its current projected launch date. For some time now,Judashas been expected to be released by March 2025 at the latest, as indicated by Take-Two Interactive,Ghost Story Games' owner. However, with that projected launch window now being a little over a month away and the fact that the game has still not announced an official release date, it seems very unlikely thatJudaswill indeed meet those projections. The absence of updates of any kind, combined with the game’s launch goal being just around the corner make something more like a 2026 release window for the game sound like a realistic estimation.
It would especially make sense forJudasto avoid its original target launch window due to the threat posed by the massive number of major titles being released in February.
That being said,Judascould still launch later this year, but it would need to time its release well — a goal that is currently difficult to meet with the release dates for some of 2025’s other anticipated games still being up in the air. For example, this year still has big plans for the launches ofDeath Stranding 2: On the Beach,Grand Theft Auto 6,Borderlands 4,Ghost of Yotei, Fable,Gears of War: E-DayandMetroid Prime 4: Beyond.Judas' most competitive characteristicwhen it comes to these titles is its uniqueness, being a Ken Levine game with a bizarre and compelling premise, but it still may want to avoid launching near them if at all possible.
Judas Could Also Stealth Drop at Some Point This Year
It’s also possible thatJudascouldstealth dropat some point this year, and that’s why there haven’t been any formal announcements about its release date. There are, of course, pros and cons to developers stealth dropping a game, soJudaswould need to consider those. The pros toJudasstealth dropping in 2025 would potentially see it avoiding overhype and unrealistic expectations, reducing marketing costs, and generating a lot of buzz and excitement that only a stealth drop is capable of. However, the cons toJudasstealth dropping would come into play if it did so at the wrong moment — say, February — as it wouldn’t have the necessary pre-launch hype to reinforce player awareness. Should it stealth drop this year,Judasmight want to aim for a somewhat empty launch window.
If nothing else happens to seeJudasreleased at some other point this year, it may very well get delayed into 2026. At the same time, perhaps it plans to keep its original projected window of March 2025, maybe even pushing its release as close to the end of the month as possible to avoidFebruary 2025’s stampede of big titles. At the very least, Ken Levine has remained vocal aboutJudas, which is indicative that the game hasn’t been forgotten.
