Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Performed Best on the Switch, Sales “Well Above” Expectations

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night successfully captured the long-lost magic of Castlevania games of the old thanks to the efforts of Koji Igarashi and his team, and was very well received at launch. Notably, however, at release, the game’s Switch port in particular received some criticism for multiple issues, and had to receive plenty of updates for it to be able to get to the level of the game’s other versions.

In spite of those early hiccups, however, the game has sold very well. Recently, it was announced that it had sold 1 million units worldwide, and now, creator Koji Igarashi has provided a breakdown of those sales. Speaking in an interview with Famitsu (translated by Nintendo Everything), Igarashi said that the game performed better on the Switch than on any other platform, with sales that were far more than what the developers had predicted.

“The Nintendo Switch,” Igarashi said when asked about which platform had the biggest response. “Sales were well above our expectations. The game launched one week later on Switch than on other consoles, and I figured fans wouldn’t be able to wait the extra week for the Switch version, so that was unexpected.”

Igarashi also confirmed that the the vast majority of the game’s sales – over 50% – had come from North America, with Japan, China, and the UK following in that order.

“That’d be North America,” Igarashi said when asked about the best performing region. “There’s always been a lot of Iga fans there. Back in the day, North America used to account for about 50% of my games’ sales, but with Ritual of the Night, it’s actually increased even more than that. After that it’d be Japan, China, and then the UK – in that order.”

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.