Metal Slug Tactics won’t be released this year, Dotemu said Thursday morning through Twitter. The tactics game will instead make its debut sometime in 2023 and will be “as explosive as possible.”

Metal Slug Tactics introduces the cartoonish sidescroller to the XCOM-like world of strategy games for the first time since it was first unveiled at the Summer Games Fest the previous year. Players will command a group of characters named Marco, Eri, Fio, and Tarma as they go on a mission to kill soldiers and detonate tanks. Like Studio claims, the game will be more than simply a straightforward game of tactics and have “roguelike features,” however it is not yet apparent exactly how.

Before its 1996 merger with SNK Corporation, Nazca Corporation created the first installment of the Metal Slug series as a 2D action series. As they repel military, extraterrestrial, and zombie assaults, a group of troops is followed in the television series. Run-and-gun gameplay and shoot-em-up techniques make up the gameplay of this series, which is most easily recognized by the incredibly detailed pixel art that has characterized it since the beginning.

Although the delays for Metal Slug Tactics and the upcoming Marvel’s Midnight Suns from Firaxis Games were announced earlier this week, strategy RPG enthusiasts still have much to look forward to this year.

Because of this, the Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp from Nintendo and WayForward, which was supposed to launch in April, has been postponed indefinitely and may not even arrive in 2022.

Regardless, Metal Slug Tactics is shaping to be an exciting and inventive blend of tactical RPG gameplay with the distinctive visual flair that SNK’s renowned series is known for; giving it more time to bake can only be a good thing given how fantastic gameplay teasers have been.

On the PC and Nintendo Switch in 2023, Metal Slug Tactics will be available.