Confirming yesterdays rumour mill that saw the game's date mysteriously change on the websites of several US retailers, Naughty Dog has released a statement clarifying a one month delay for The Last of Us. The hotly anticipated PlayStation 3 exclusive title is now due worldwide on June 14th 2013, pushed back from its original May 7 date.

The Last of Us is an ambitious project. In many ways it may be Naughty Dog’s most ambitious project to date – brand new universe and cast of characters, brand new tech, brand new genre, not to mention it’s easily the longest campaign Naughty Dog has ever made.

As we entered the final phase of development for The Last of Us, we came to realize just how massive Joel and Ellie’s journey is. But instead of cutting corners or compromising our vision, we came to the tough decision that the game deserved a few extra weeks to ensure every detail of The Last of Us was up to Naughty Dog’s internal high standards.

As a team we pride ourselves on setting a very high quality bar for every aspect of our games – gameplay, story, art, design, technology and more. We want to make sure The Last of Us raises that bar even further – for ourselves, and most importantly, for you, our fans.

The extra wait will be very short and your patience will be rewarded. Update your calendars. You won’t even have to change seasons. The Last of Us will be available June 14th, 2013. Until then, know that we will be working extremely hard to deliver an experience that matches your high expectations.

Ordinarily, we'd be rather suspicious of a game being delayed to launch at a time when the world's games press will be busy covering the news of the E3 expo, when negative reviews can be obscured by the many preview articles and impressions of new console hardware. But given that it's the guys that made Uncharted, and that Sony are generally pretty good with early review access for their first-party games, they genuinely deserve the benefit of the doubt here.