Tank Troopers is a multiplayer tank fighting game that released on the 3DS eShop earlier this year. While many praised the local play aspect of the game, people criticized for its lack of online play.

Former Nintendo employee and Vitei Games CEO Giles Goddard revealed in an interview with Source Gaming that online play was originally included during Tank Troopers’ development. However Nintendo asked the developers to remove it from the game for unknown reasons. Giles suspected Nintendo “didn’t want to commit to testing and development time” on the online functionality, and ruled out time constraints as the team was “ahead of schedule”.

Besides online play, Giles spoke about the lack of Tank Troopers marketing from Nintendo of America, as there was only “1 tweet” from the company about it. He also said Tank Troopers is the natural step to take after Steel Diver, since “it was all in the same world”. Giles hopes there will be an official Steel Diver/Tank Troopers crossover one of these days featuring elements from both games. Lastly, he says Tank Troopers’ unique ability system would definitely be included in the next Steel Diver game if there’s one.