Publisher 505 Games has announced that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will officially be heading to Nintendo Switch on June 25th 2019. The Switch release, which is launching a week after it’s PC, PS4 and Xbox One counterparts, will be available both digitally and in physical form.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a spiritual successor to Koji Igarashi’s Metroidvania styled Castlevania titles. Dubbed an “Igavania”, the upcoming release was originally planned to launch in March 2017 after raising $5.4 million on Kickstarter back in 2015. Since then Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has suffered multiple delays, however, judging by their latest trailer, it appears that developers clearly used this time wisely. The new trailer pokes fun at itself and directly addresses criticisms of early trailers and gameplay demos. Improved textures, models, environments and character designs are all shown off, and the game is definitely looking more polished the closer it gets to launch.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will release first (on June 18th) for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, but Switch owners will need to wait an extra week to pick up the game. The reason for the delay is unknown, especially considering it’s such a short one. One possible explanation is that extra polish time for the Switch port may be required – as recent impressions at PAX East were not particularly glowing. Attendees who were lucky enough to try the game on Switch said the game was noticeably choppier and blurrier than the console counterparts. A Kickstarter update addressed these problems, attributing them to an overheating issue on the Nintendo Switch.
We will see whether the Switch version has been improved when it releases both physically (in store) and digitally (via the Nintendo eShop )on June 25th, 2019.
