Sega announced that development, updates, new content, and scheduled maintenance will all be delayed due to the coronavirus. They also announced that developers are now being mandated to work from home, which will also slow down the development and roll out of new content for Phantasy Star Online 2.

The news was made available over on the PSO2 website on April 14th, 2020, where they stated…

“Thank you very much for using “Phantasy Star Online 2”.

“In response to the spread of the new coronavirus and the declaration of a state of emergency, development and operation members have changed their work arrangements to work from home in order to prevent the spread of the infection.

“Under these circumstances, we are continuing to develop the game for our players to enjoy, but due to the large impact in the change of having staff work from home, we have decided that it is necessary to postpone updates, change some campaigns, and suspend scheduled maintenance.

The blog post also lists a number of changes being made to the game in light of the delayed development cycle now that the staff are working from home. This includes the CERO rating being moved back due to CERO going on lockdown, along with the May and June updates that were supposed to contain the anniversary update.

PS Vita service ending date has also been postponed due to the coronavirus. I don’t know if Vita owners will take this as a good thing of being able to get more playtime out of the game or as a bad thing that the inevitable is still coming only now they don’t know when.

Maintenance that was also scheduled to take place on April 22nd has been delayed along with the new content that was supposed to be released on April 22nd, such as the Sakura Wars crossover collaboration.

They will be making up for some of these delays with bonus enhancement boosts as compensation, especially for the campaign events that were supposed to take place in late April.

The livestream broadcast that they were also supposed to conduct on April 21st to announce the new content, campaigns, and events set to roll out throughout May has also been cancelled.

You’ll have to stay tuned in on the official Phantasy Star Online 2 website for further updates on when the game’s updates and maintenance will be restored.

(Thanks for the news tip Wondy Bergers)