Wayfinder Has Been Submitted To Xbox For Certification, But I Still Think A 2024 Release Is A Tough Ask

It's only been a week since I reported on the new Nightmare difficulty mode coming to Wayfinder. At that time, Airship Syndicate wasn't ready to give a date on the anticipated Xbox release of the dungeon-delving game. I speculated that it was a pretty safe bet we wouldn't see a release on Microsoft's consoles prior to 2025, despite the team previously targeting a 2024 release.

Today, there's a little bit of good news on the Xbox front as Airship announced via X that they had submitted the Xbox version of Wayfinder to Microsoft for certification. They'll announce a launch date once they have one.

Wayfinders,

We're excited to announce that the @Xbox version has been submitted for certification. Once we have a release date we'll announce it here!

Thanks for your continued patience!

— Wayfinder (@playwayfinder) November 27, 2024

That's certainly a step in the right direction, but I think Xbox players will still have to wait until next year at this point...unless something crazy happens. Most devs don't talk much about the certification processes to get their title on PlayStation or Xbox, but that process takes weeks at minimum, and sometimes it extends into months if the team has to address issues the console-makers found and resubmit the game.

Airship knows a bit about this as getting PS5 certification was a bit of a hurdle to getting to a launch on that console. Getting to launch once certified can be done quickly, again Airship did that on PS5 in about a week, but that certification...that one can take time.

We did get a bit of insight into the process from the devs over at Second Extinction in 2021. In a blog post on this topic, Associate Producer Julius said, "Secondly, a big part of bringing a game to Xbox is certification. Every game that comes out on Xbox has to go through Microsoft’s certification process, where Microsoft tests a game to make sure it respects their standards (e.g., what happens when the controller is disconnected or what happens when the player loses internet connection). This is usually a months-long process since there are many requirements that need to be met, and you want to pass certification as soon as possible."

Sure, every game is different and maybe Wayfinder can get it done more quickly, but yeah, I'd bet on January to February at this point. I can't wait until they do, though! Now we just need word on if it'll come to Game Pass.