Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night dev Koji Igarashi has canned the planned Vita release of the game, telling Kickstarter backers that Sony’s ongoing lack of support for the Vita, and seeming plans to discontinue the system as a whole, is to blame.
“This decision is largely due to Sony’s plans to discontinue the Vita console, ending production of physical copies and stopping certain online store support features,” said Igarashi. “It is extremely unfortunate, but as a result, we won’t be releasing the game on Vita”
Sony’s support of its handheld system has seemingly been wavering for some time, but the company recently delivered several direct blows to its Vita support in the last few months alone. Sony announced in February that it would be ending free PlayStation Plus game offerings for the Vita (and PS3) in 2019.
Just this May, reports started to circulate that Sony was also planning to shut down production of physical Vita GameCards by the end of the fiscal year in March 2019. In emails to developers, Sony warned that final GameCard purchase orders were to be sent off by February 15, 2019, though the company later clarified that GameCard production will still continue in Japan.
“Being a huge PlayStation & Sony fan myself, I also know canceling the Vita version of the game may be disappointing to some of you,” added publisher 505’s Roberto Piraino. “But with Sony’s plans to discontinue the console and physical production of games, removing Vita titles from PS+ lineups etc., it was an unfortunate but necessary decision to make. We really hope you’ll continue to support us on one of the other platforms available.”
Bloodstained, which was Kickstarted by the sizable sum of $5.5 million back in 2015, was originally due out for WiiU, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Vita, PC, Mac, and Linux, though the WiiU release has since been swapped out for a Nintendo Switch version. Along with news that the Vita version is no more, Igarashi also announced that the game itself has been delayed into 2019.