Fans have been waiting patiently for any news pertaining to the upcoming platformer Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, spiritual successor to the highly revered Castlevania: Symphony of the Night developed by Koji Igarashi. Taking a very similar approach to Keiji Inafune’s Mighty No. 9, Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night was entirely crowdfunded through Kickstarter.
Today, on the game’s Kickstarter page, Mr. Igarashi made an announcement:
“Hello, this is IGA.
Thank you for always supporting us. I would like to give a message to the backers who pledged for the Wii U version of Bloodstained.
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.
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.
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.
We hope you will continue to support us.”
He goes on to state that backers who ordered a copy of the game for Wii U can opt for a Nintendo Switch version instead. Backers who want out completely are eligible for a refund, but keep in mind that there is an April 20, 2017 deadline. The world of crowdfunding games has taken a lot of heat in recent years due to developers suffering delays, incorporating too many stretch-goals, or simply not putting out the product that was initially promised. You may recall that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was supposed to release this year, but was pushed to 2018. Many people (including this writer) are excited about Igarashi’s upcoming game. Fingers crossed.
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