Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is officially coming to the Nintendo Switch and is no longer coming to the Wii U, according to game designer Koji Igarashi. On the game’s Kickstarter page, Igarashi says that the developer has decided a new course for the game, and instead of releasing it on the Wii U, it will be released on Nintendo’s new console hybrid.
Nintendo to blame
Bloodstained will now be released on the PS4, Xbox One, and Vita, but not on the Wii U. Igarashi decided to adde Bloodstained for the Wii U only after achieving the $3 million stretch target in 2015.
“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. “We are very sorry that it has come to this after all your support, but we hope you will understand.”
Igarashi said the decision has more to do with Nintendo not giving enough support to launch the game on the Wii U. Due to such changes, procuring support from the hardware maker became quite a task, and therefore, they decided to drop the Wii U and shift to theNintendo Switch.
Further, the directors apologized to those who were waiting for the Wii U version. The game was originally scheduled to be released this month, but it was postponed last fall to the first half of 2018.
Bloodstained backers must not worry
The administrating company for the game’s Kickstarter campaign, Fangamer, has made available a few options to backers. Anyone who pledged for the Wii U version of the game will now get the Switch version automatically. However, customers can also switch to any of the other platforms for which Bloodstained is in development (Linux/Mac/PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita or Xbox One).
For those who will not settle for any version other than the Wii U version, a refund is the only option. However, they need to comply with certain criteria and request the refund by April 20.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is not the first game to be canceled on the Wii U. In December, Playtonic stated that it would not make the Wii U version of Yooka-Laylee because of “unforeseen technical issues.” According to Eurogamer, Playtonic worked hard to solve the issue but failed.