Call Of Duty: WW2 Is Not Coming To The Switch

Rumors had swirled that Call of Duty: WW2 may be in development for the Nintendo Switch. Some hints of the possibility surfaced shortly after Activision and Sledgehammer Games announced the World War II first-person shooter. Well, it looks like that's not happening at all and it won't be appearing on the Switch this year.

The news comes courtesy of a Ask Me Anything on Reddit, with Sledgehammer Games' Michael Condrey, the co-founder of the studio. In a very simple post when someone asked if Call of Duty: WW2 would make the cut for Nintendo's new hybrid console/handheld, the answer was a simple "No".

There was no explanation behind the post, no details on the reasoning why, absolutely nothing. A lot of Nintendo fans were obviously put off by the news given that many hoped that with the strong early sales of the Switch third-party publishers and developers would be inclined to support the system, but it looks like there's still a measure of tepidity within the development community when it comes to diving head-first into supporting the Nintendo Switch.

This doesn't come as too much of a shock given that some publishers were burned bad when supporting the Wii U. The system got off to a strong start during the holiday season when it launched in 2012, but the sales quickly tapered off after it moved 3 million SKUs. From there it struggled desperately to gain any attention whatsoever and did a terrible job of it. A lot of the problems facing the Wii U wasn't just a lack of interest, but a lack of proper marketing. Many casuals (and some hardcore) gamers had absolutely no idea what the darn thing was.

When developers were releasing games for the Wii U, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, some people were under the impression that they were games for a Wii expansion system. I can't blame them because during the E3 conference I almost thought the same thing when they first introduced the Wii U... it looked identical to the Wii and Nintendo did a poor job in marketing and communicating the difference between the two systems.

For the Switch, however, Nintendo has definitely created more product separation by giving the branding of the Switch a strong, resonating identity that has helped it spread far and wide the world around with casuals and cores alike.

However, strong starting sales for the Switch doesn't fix the very obvious problem of a lack of third-party support. In the case of Call of Duty: WW2, many hopefuls jumped onto the possibility of a Switch version when a social media photo was shared by Beenox showing the team wearing Call of Duty: WW2 apparel. Beenox is known for being both a developer and a port house for Nintendo products, which instantly led people to speculate that Beenox could be working on a port of Call of Duty: WW2 for the Nintendo Switch.

However, all hopes were dashed when Condrey and the rest of Sledgehammer confirmed that the upcoming World War II first-person shooter is not scheduled to release for the Nintendo Switch this fall.