The release of Shadowrun Returns has been delayed until July 25, developer Harebrained Schemes has announced.

The game was initially expected in January but was delayed until earlier this month.

“We know we’ve been saying June for some time, but now that we’ve reached this final stage of development, and although our Kickstarter funding was spent some time ago, we've decided to invest additional time in bugfixing and polishing the game,” said Harebrained in an update on the game’s Kickstarter page.

“[The delay] means a longer crunch period for a tired team, but everyone agrees that it’s worth it.

“One of the most common pieces of Backer feedback we've received over the past year is that we should take the time we need to ship this game.”

Harebrained also expressed its desire that the community expand the game’s universe using the bundled level editor.

“We see our Seattle campaign, ‘The Dead Man’s Switch’, as the FIRST story of what we hope will be thousands of stories, rather than as THE story of Shadowrun Returns,” it said.

“When the game ships, you’ll have access to our entire Seattle campaign using the SRR Editor, allowing you to use it as a reference and starting point for your own stories. We hope that by sharing our campaign in this way, we’ll accelerate the growth of Shadowrun storytelling.”

Shadowrun Returns raised US$1,836,447 (NZ$2,298,381) via Kickstarter in April 2012.