50+ indie games cancelled and still on for Wii U, in limbo, moved to Switch
In Limbo / Moved to Switch
Originally announced for Wii U close to three years ago, 39 Days to Mars has undergone plenty of changes. The team is now focusing on PC where the title will launch first.
It’s unclear if 39 Days to Mars will still end up on Nintendo’s previous system, with developer Philip Buchanan admitting that “support and development for the Wii U is starting to slow down.” Buchanan still wants to have the game on consoles, “but what form this will be is currently up in the air.” Perhaps that’ll be Switch since the “looks like a great fit for a two player co-operative game, and the fact that it ships with two controllers is exciting”.
Acro Storm has been moved over to Switch in favor of Wii U “simply due to potential audience and general increased power available to us,” according to BlueComet Games. The game is currently in Early Access on Steam. Once the game is complete, the team still has strong interest in releasing it on a Nintendo system, “and Switch seems like an excellent platform to port it to”.
Witch Beam’s Sanatana Mishra briefly told us that the team doesn’t “have anything new to say about Cactus on the Wii U.” Mishra does find Switch “lovely” and hopes to obtain a devkit as soon “as soon as possible but we have no specific plans for it.”
As noted by developer Matthew Wegner, the team has been concentrating on the initial PC launch, and there hasn’t been much communication with Nintendo as of late. Wegner anticipates a Switch release, but wouldn’t entirely rule out Wii U “if it seems like there’s still a market for it, and it isn’t a technical nightmare”.
Bloom: Memories is looking more likely for Switch than Wii U at this point, based on a Kickstarter update from February. The team was waiting to be approved as official developers, but managed to order Switch dev kit. It was also mentioned that the chances of Bloom on Switch are looking “pretty good so far”.
Teku Studios is still looking into the console situation and hasn’t made any concrete decisions. That being said, “it is very likely that we end up launching it for Switch at this point, since it seems like the most obvious way to go right now.”
Dead Mage told us that they’ll have some Nintendo news soon. Be on the lookout for that.
We were only told the following: “I have all the hardware and the game is ready to port but I’m not so sure I shouldn’t wait for Switch”. If we have any updates in the future, we’ll let you know.
Blowfish Studios won’t say anything on the record just yet. With that in mind, the company is considering moving over to Switch development based on the system’s strong sales thus far and better-performing hardware.
The SDK series is finally out worldwide and the team is moving away from Nintendo Web Framework to Unity. That means HullBreach Uncloaked’s development is now started to ramp up, and HullBreach Studios is moving forward with this new IP. Previously targeted for Wii U, it’s now intended for Switch.
“Switch is a very likely go ahead,” according to Neostream’s John Choi. The first order of business will involve a community survey of Nintendo fans “later down the track closer to release to decide on whether to cancel Wii U.”
AE Games passed along the following note when we sent in an inquiry about Mad Men Football:
“I’ve been purposefully quiet about the game since the last public update in 2014. It has not been cancelled, and there is definitely interest in the Nintendo Switch side of things. Attention hasn’t fully shifted to the Switch, as there were certain gameplay elements and ideas the Wii U was better designed for when development first started. I definitely called a ‘timeout’ on public news and more reveals until a later time, but the Nintendo Switch was not the only reason behind that decision.”
Neon Krieger Yamato is still going through core development, and it’ll end up on PC initially. Developer Dong Lee noted that “a Wii U port is still a possibility,” but “it isn’t a pressing focus for me right now.” Lee has interest in Switch as well, “but again I’m mostly concentrating on just finishing and releasing on Steam.”
Nostalgia: Two Worlds | One Soul
We were told that the team would have information to share soon. That’s it!
The status of Paradise Lost on Nintendo platforms will be determined after the PC release. However, the game is likely to shift from Wii U to PC.
Fabraz originally hoped to get Planet Diver and Slime-san on Wii U. Unfortunately, neither is happening at this point. The good news is that, as we previously reported, Slime-san is coming to Switch in Q3 2017.
Enrique Dryere of Triple.B.Titles had this to say when we asked about the status of Popup Dungeon:
“We’re considering the Switch. If it were entirely up to us, we’d definitely want the game to release on the platform shortly following its PC/Mac/Linux release, and we’ve approached a number of third parties to see if they might be interested in helping us make it happen. However, Popup’s user generated content creation and sharing greatly complicates things, so we’re still looking into the possibility. Finding a way to make it work is still a priority for us, but unfortunately our stature as small-time indie devs doesn’t give us much leverage. Our hope is that the game will find success on Steam, which might encourage Nintendo and third parties to cooperate with us.”
We further asked Dryere if Wii U is fully out of the picture now. To that, he said: “Not entirely, but a Wii U exclusive version (without a Switch version) very likely is.”
When it was initially announced for Wii U, this game was known as Project Light. It now has a new name: Light Fairytale. Initially, the RPG will be on Steam and Xbox One, followed by Switch and PlayStation 4.
Choice Provisions recently announced that Space Dave! is coming to Switch. Unsurprisingly, we received confirmation that the Wii U version is no more.
As of now, we don’t have a truly concrete answer about whether we’ll be seeing Stash on Wii U or Switch. Frogdice’s Michael Hartman said that the team wants to be on “every console platform,” though doing so largely “depends on the willingness/help from the console manufacturers.”
Frogdice has apparently spoken to Nintendo. But like we’ve heard from some other developers, PC is the “main focus” currently, and when things are stable there, “we will start exploring console client options more fully.”
To close things out, we’ve included a list of games that we attempted to research, but were unable to reach the developers:
A Rite from the Stars
Adventure Thru 8-Bit Land for Wii U
Anima: Gate of Memories
A.N.N.E.
Asteroid Challenge
Between Heartbeats
CheeseCake Cool Conrad
Cross Reverie
Dark Day L.A.
Dreii
Dungeons & Robots
Dumpster Dive
Fake Colors
Forgotten Memories
Heroes Never Lose
Heroes, Help!
Hover: Revolt of Gamers (note: has been announced for Switch, so unlikely for Wii U)
Kerbal Space Program
Lil Bub’s Hello Earth
Mekazoo
Micro Racers
MouseCraft
Nevermoor
Racing Apex
Red Goddess: Inner World
Road Redemption
Rymdresa
Saturday Morning RPG
Shadow Blade: Reload
SpaceBoy
Starr Mazer
Super Doomed’n Damned
SuperStick
Sydney Hunter & The Caverns of Death
Terra Incognita
The Big Shuffle
The Castle Game
Velocity Stream
Warlocks
Water: The World in Chaos
Zarvot
Zombie Pinball and Darkflexx
