The companies behind the recently-released remake of 2003's XIII have apologised for the release's problems.

Developer PlayMagic and publisher Microids said in a joint statement that the title did not meet their quality bar. The duo has blamed the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic for creating issues in development as teams moved to working from home.

Many of the issues facing the game are technical in nature, but fans have also complained about the changes to XIII's original cel-shaded art style.

"First and foremost, we would like to offer our most sincere apologies for the game’s technical issues," the teams said.

"In its present state, XIII does not meet our quality standards and we fully understand players’ frustrations. The pandemic has impacted the game’s production on many levels. Pivoting to home working for the teams has added unexpected delays in the development schedule and the QA process. We hoped we would be able to provide a Day One patch fixing all the issues but the development of this update is taking more time than expected.

"We want to assure you that PlayMagic is working hard to solve all the game’s issues. With live monitoring and multiple patches in the upcoming days and weeks, we hope to reach the quality level we all expect for the optimum gaming experience. The first update will be pushed shortly to fix the most urgent issues regarding the controls, frame rate, collisions, rendering and sound."