After a prolonged radio silence, the Nintendo Switch port of retro fighter Pocket Rumble is finally finished and ready to launch this summer. Developer Cardboard Robot Games issued a developer update that confirms, for sure this time, Pocket Rumble will hit the Switch sometime “between now and the end of July”.
In the video, Christian of Cardboard Robot explains that the long delay was attributed to approval issues with Nintendo and online net code problems that ate up development time for the small team. These issues were to be resolved before any progress could be made. In gratitude for people’s patience, Kickstarter backers will receive a Switch code for free with their Steam copy.
In terms of further developments, the Switch version will launch in the coming months, while the Steam version will remain in Early Access in order to flesh out the single player mode, add all the bosses created from the Kickstarter rewards, and the new character Morgana with her own free update. All these updates will be folded back into the Switch version as a massive 2.0 patch sometime after launch. A Japanese launch of Pocket Rumble on Switch is also planned for Japan.
Pocket Rumble was announced for Nintendo Switch all the way back in February 2017 during a Nindie Direct. Despite the prominent placement in a pre-launch Direct broadcast, the game slipped from its March 2017 release and went into radio silence. Pocket Rumble is a 2-button fighter that throws back to the portable fighting games of the Neo Geo Pocket Color, the aged handheld made by SNK in the late ’90s. The last the public has seen of the oft-delayed fighter was its playable demo at EGX Rezzed this spring.
