One of the first Nintendo Switch games to be announced was Ubisoft’s Steep. Since its announcement around two years ago, the game has been, excuse the pun, steeped in mystery. Now, we finally have official confirmation from Steep developers that Steep Switch development has been halted. This is a dying shame, but sadly something we’ve seen coming for a long time. It’s time to move on, folks.
While it’s undoubtedly disappointing that the Steep Switch version won’t be hitting the slopes, we’re glad to know that it is officially no longer in development. No more living in limbo for us. The sad news was confirmed via the official Steep Twitter account. The account explained the reasoning behind the move to cancel the port. They explained that it was due to wanting to “focus on bringing new live content and challenges to Steep players instead.”
Hey @RJISAGAMER! We are wholly dedicated to supporting the live game, and made the decision to stop Steep development on the Nintendo Switch platform to focus on bringing new live content and challenges to Steep players instead. We’ll have more exciting news to share soon.
— Steep (@Steep_Game) August 9, 2018
The Live Seasons of Steep help to keep the game interesting for existing players on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Shifting its efforts onto the Live Seasons content, Ubisoft is looking to improve the game as is. Porting the game onto Switch would take time away from any such endeavors. Despite this, Ubisoft left fans with a little bit of hope to take into the future by saying, “we’ll have more exciting news to share soon.” This could well have meant more news on the live content, but perhaps something to do with Steep hitting the Switch at some stage.
While Ubisoft has halted development of Steep Switch, it doesn’t mean they couldn’t pawn development off to an outside studio. Panic Button Games have done noble things with DOOM, Rocket League, and Wolfenstein 2 on Switch. Any such move would take time, of course.