'Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night' Launch Delayed to 2018

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Tuesday, March 28, 2017

With the move to convert the target platform for "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night," the game will be launching on the more advanced Nintendo Switch console. This comes with a couple of bad news — the Wii U version will be canceled, and the release date for the game will be pushed back to next year, 2018.

The good news, especially for Nintendo Switch fans, is that the Kickstarted funded action game "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" by famed game designer Koji Iragashi will be coming to the new console. That means the new game can take full advantage of the performance and portability of the new console.

With a development team as small as the one doing "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night," however, something has to give. As game director Koji Igarashi explained, it was a matter of targeting the relevant platform with the most support.

"During our Kickstarter campaign, the Wii U was at the height of its popularity, but the situation has drastically changed after the release of Nintendo Switch," Igarashi said.

"This change made it difficult to receive the necessary support from the hardware maker, which has led us to drop the Wii U development and shift the development to Nintendo Switch," Igarashi explained further, as quoted in an IGN article.

Out of the more than 64,867 backers who have pledged $5.5 million in Kickstarter alone, some of them may not be interested in the Nintendo Switch version. To these supporters, Igarashi offers his apologies as part of his statement, offering a refund or the option to transfer their pledge to another version of the game.

"We are very sorry that it has come to this after all your support, but we hope you will understand. We would like to respond by preparing options for our backers, such as moving your pledge to another version or requesting a refund if you don't want any other version," Igarashi offered in his statement, as reported by Nintendo Life.

Watch the concept pitch video for the Kickstarter drive of "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" below.