Microsoft gives Fez a release date, Polytron shoots it down

Fez, indie developer Polytron’s XBLA platformer, has been a really, really long time coming–and today, for a short while, it looked like the game finally had a release date.

Earlier on in the day, Joystiq happened to notice that Microsoft updated the listing for Fez on the Xbox Live Marketplace, giving the game a release date of May 2. Sadly, it looks like Microsoft was wrong.

Shortly after the news started making the rounds, Polytron’s Phil Fish got in touch with Joystiq, informing the publication that Fez still has no set release date yet. In fact, the game hasn’t even passed Microsoft’s certification process yet.

Fish also debunked Microsoft’s listing over on Twitter, saying: “FEZ IS NOT COMING OUT MAY 2nd. I repeat: FEZ IS NOT COMING OUT MAY 2nd. I have no idea where that information came out of but it’s not true.”

The May 2 release date may have been shot down, but that doesn’t mean that Fez is still in limbo. Just last week, the developer tweeted that an apparently final build of Fez was submitted to Microsoft for certification, suggesting that the game might actually be coming out at some point in the near enough future.

If this is the first you’re hearing of Fez, you can check out the latest gameplay trailer below to see what the fuss is all about–and why you should care that Fez is hopefully coming soon.