Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Delay Explained
By Kyle Sledge 07 October 2016
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night director Koji Igarashi discusses the reasons for the game’s delay and how the postponement affects its status as a Wii U title.
For those unaware, at the beginning of September this year, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the successfully funded Kickstarter project from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night creator and director Koji Igarashi, received a delay pushing it back into 2018. While the developer didn’t announce an exact release date, Igarashi did declare his intentions behind the delay as a means to get it “done right the first time” before needing to apologize to all backers and fans.
Following the delay announcement for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, IGN published an interview with Igarashi held at Tokyo Game Show 2016 that touched on its postponement, further explanations as to why its release date is being moved back, and how the holdup could affect the game becoming a Wii U port. Apparently, one of the main reasons behind Iga not waiting to set a concrete release date in stone stems from the necessity to have additional developer support to finish the game and attain his personal standards in quality.
As evidenced in the video below, Igarashi reveals a partnership with 505 Games in order for it to help in publishing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which ought to give the director and his small development team some extra heft in making the game all it can be. With the title having broken a Kickstarter record during its campaign period to become the highest funded game project in the crowdfunding site’s history, it’s safe to say that Igarashi doesn’t want the $5.5 million in donations to go to waste, hence his teaming up with the publisher for added promotional and production value.
Mainly, Igarashi declares that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night being delayed into 2018 is due to the actual success of the Kickstarter campaign, in that the more stretch goals it hit, the more work would need to be done in order to maintain the integrity of the game and expand upon its demo build. As Iga put it, “The second that we started to hit so many stretch goals, it became more than one standard team could make. So unless we made this 100-person team size then there’s no way we were going to be able to finish it by the original date.”
Furthermore, Igarashi decided that postponing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night would ultimately make it a better game in the end. According to the director, the final product would have suffered if it was released to the public on the original launch date, saying, “It was either drop the quality bar one notch in order to get it out sooner, or it was to be satisfied with the quality and continue to make sure it was going to be maintained throughout the project. At the end of the day, I want to go with the quality. This is important to me.”
As far as Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night‘s status as a Wii U port is concerned, it seems as if the delay might have Igarashi and his team of developers eschewing a version for the Nintendo platform altogether, as the creator is not making any promises. In fact, Iga insinuates that there’s a high likelihood that Bloodstained might not make it to the Wii U, but could eventually become a title for Nintendo NX.
“The reality is this: As timelines move on, certain pieces of hardware become irrelevant. Sometimes new pieces of hardware come out that make you think about what is the right strategy. And as a creator, usually you want to make stuff for the new hardware. That’s the reality.”
Of course, as is the case with almost any developer, making games with the latest pieces of technology is necessary in order to remain relevant in the industry. With this being the case, Igarashi has said he hopes Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will be able to run on PlayStation 4 Pro in 4K with HDR, declaring that he is shooting for the goal of “at least 60 frames [per second],” but would be elated with “120 frames, or something like that” on the PS4 Pro. With any luck, not only will Bloodstained look and play great for Sony’s enhanced console and other platforms upon release, but also Igarashi and his team will continue to keep the game’s backers in mind during the rest of the production process.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is set to release sometime in 2018.
Source: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night — YouTube, IGN
