Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night delayed to 2018

With Kickstarter projects, delays are pretty common. In fact, one might say they’re pretty much inevitable, especially when the project is supposed to release on multiple platforms (due to developers very frequently underestimating the amount of work needed to make that happen, something that happens even to those with a lot of experience). Unfortunately, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is no exception.

Earlier today, the developers shared a video message from Koji Igarashi, who announced that the game was delayed to 2018 (and more precisely the first half, though the team doesn’t have an exact release date right now).

As you can imagine, Koji Igarashi decided to delay the game in order to make sure it’s of the best quality when it comes out. At the moment, he believes that “between [the] current production set-up and release deadline”, the game “may not end up meeting my quality standard”. In other words: at the rate things are going, the game that would be released if nothing was changed wouldn’t be good enough.

Besides the delay, Koji Igarashi decided to add a new development team, buand to improve their approach, to make sure his vision for the game remains intact. Since Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns of all times (for a video game), Koji Igarashi is well aware that fan expectations are pretty high.

Basically, there’s no room for error: the game has to launch in perfect quality. It’s definitely something Koji Igarashi and the development team have been aware from the start, but there’s no doubt the troubled launch of Mighty No. 9 (still not available on some platforms, like the Nintendo 3DS) further cemented their belief.

Here’s the video message from Koji Igarashi:

Unfortunately, Koji Igarashi doesn’t say anything regarding the Wii U version, which is being developed by Armature (and will most likely release after the other versions). A Wii U game in 2017 was already a risky move (what with the NX launching in March), but a 2018 release would be even worse. Hopefully, we get some new in an upcoming update!

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Wii U) will be released in 2018. Our Upcoming Releases page has been updated.

Source: Kickstarter