Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn finally has a release window, with Saber Interactive announcing today that the game is launching this fall. Better yet, Switch owners have an opportunity to pick up a free copy if they purchase NBA Playgrounds.

Saber Interactive is putting the newly-announced offer in place as a way of showing its appreciation to the community. Anyone who buys NBA Playgrounds on Switch before the game’s online patch drops will be entitled to Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn at no extra cost. This promotion will only be available on Nintendo’s platform.

Saber CEO Matthew Karch said in a statement:

“We had every intention of launching online play for NBA Playgrounds on Nintendo Switch within days of release, but, despite our best efforts, it didn’t play out that way. We sincerely apologize for the delay and want to let everyone know the fix will be coming very soon. But words are cheap, and games are not. So we’re giving everyone that bought NBA Playgrounds on Nintendo Switch before the online play patch hits a free copy of Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn on Switch this fall to express our gratitude.”

NBA Playgrounds is starting to be updated on other platforms, which includes fifteen new players along with the ability to play as Shaq with the various teams from his career. Challenge Mode (challenge players to online matches) and a new connection manager (monitors the connection of players during ranked matches and penalizes disconnections from games that are made to avoid losing) have also been added. The entire shooting system has been updated as well with reworking timing, a meter, and clarified UI.

Going forward, Saber “will be giving players new ways to compete with online tournament functionality, and dozens of new players will be released shortly.”

We’ve included a new trailer for Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFX-77vuK8Q

Source

A slap to the face. I was hoping for a patch for the switch version of nba playgrounds. This is just a fucking joke.

It sounds like the patch is coming. The free game offer is recompense for the long wait for the patch. I don't think the game is a replacement for the patch.

At least that's how I read it.

It sucked really really bad...

Yeah, i cringed myself. :dolan:

I was really expecting the patch today. And yet, here I am with nothing in my hands.

Oh, I see. Yeah, online functionality was promised a few days after launch. It's been over three weeks now. Saber definitely dropped the ball (no pun intended).

But at least the company is trying to make amends. I'm hopeful the patch will arrive on Switch soon.

We should get in a game online once it does :)

Free Shaq Fu is a pretty good deal. The Switch version sales must have been high if they're scrambling like this to appease Switch owners, and it was quite high on the Switch download charts in North America for some time (even above Mario Kart 8 for a while).

I wanna try Shaq Fu out of pure curiosity. Don't care for sports games all that much but, as a Lakers fan, I want a game where Shaq beats things up.

Can't wait to see how the Chaos in the Windy City and Shut Up and Jam! franchises respond.  Perhaps one gets bundled with FIFA?

Same here.