Cuphead Announced For Nintendo Switch, Will Have Xbox Live Support

Nintendo showed off a ton of games during its Nindies Spring Showcase on March 20, but one of the biggest announcements came right at the beginning of the presentation, when the company revealed Cuphead is coming to Nintendo Switch next month. The acclaimed platformer arrives in the Switch Eshop on April 18, but you can pre-purchase it from the digital store right now.

Nintendo specifically thanked its "friends at Microsoft" for helping it bring Cuphead to Switch. The game first launched for Xbox One and PC as a Microsoft exclusive in 2017, garnering critical acclaim for its challenging run-and-gun gameplay and beautiful hand-drawn visuals, which evoke the style of classic 1930s cartoons. You can check out a trailer below.

On top of that, Microsoft announced that Cuphead on Switch will support Xbox Live, allowing you to unlock Achievements when you play the game on Nintendo's console. In a blog post on the Xbox website, the company explained it is working with developer Studio MDHR on implementing Xbox Live features into the Switch version later this year as a post-launch update. This follows Microsoft's previous announcement that it plans to expand Xbox Live to Switch, iOS, and Android. The exact feature set for Xbox Live in Cuphead on Switch has yet to be confirmed.

GameSpot awarded Cuphead an 8/10 when it first launched on Xbox One. "Cuphead has been a longtime coming, and it's great to see that it lives up to its initial promises," critic Peter Brown wrote in GameSpot's Cuphead review. "It's beautiful to look at, and with a pitch-perfect soundtrack, it flawlessly captures the era its developers so clearly revere. It's also an intense action game that pulls no punches."

An expansion for Cuphead titled The Delicious Last Course was announced during Microsoft's E3 2018 presentation. The expansion is slated to arrive sometime this year and will introduce new challenges, bosses, and another playable character, Ms. Chalice.

That certainly wasn't the only announcement to come out of the Nindies Spring Showcase; Nintendo also unveiled Cadence of Hyrule, a Zelda-themed Crypt of the NecroDancer crossover coming to Switch this spring. You can check out all of the trailers from the Nindies Spring Showcase here.