Rocket League dev did “custom work” to bring the game to Switch, currently ahead of schedule
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Switch | 6 Comments
Switch was made to be compatible with Unreal Engine 4. Unreal Engine 3, however, is another story. The older version isn’t supported as well, which made it a bit tricky to bring Rocket League to Switch.
Psyonix head Jeremy Dunham talked with GamesBeat about porting Rocket League to Switch, which is being done with some help from Panic Button – the same team that worked on the Xbox One version. He said:
“We feel really confident about it. In the beginning, we weren’t so sure. We had to do custom work. The Switch by itself doesn’t have inherent Unreal 3 support. It only has Unreal 4. To support 3, we had to do custom work.”
Dunham also reiterated what we’ve heard previously – that Rocket League will be 720p and 60 frames per second at all times.
“The main compromise we had to make is we’re running the game in 720p rather than 1080p, even on the TV. It’s our opinion that it’s much more beneficial for the game to run fast at 60 frames per second than to look the absolute best. We’ll ship at 60 frames per second for the docked version and the undocked version.”
Dunham also had some encouraging words about the overall state of Rocket League on Switch. The team “didn’t think we would have it running this smooth, this early.”
“We’re actually ahead of where we thought we’d be. We didn’t think we would have it running this smooth, this early. For a while we were concerned about whether we’d have anything to show at E3 at all. We have a very talented team at Psyonix. Our engineers have done a lot of hard work to make sure this runs as well as it does already. We’ve already discovered things in the last few weeks that we weren’t aware of a few weeks ago. It’s already made the game perform incredibly. We’re very encouraged.”
More: interview, Jeremy Dunham, Psyonix, Rocket League, top
Splatoon 2 devs on its competitive nature, Salmon Run talk, more
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 1 Comment
Interviews coming out of E3 continue to roll out from E3. The latest one is from Glixel, who spoke with Splatoon 2 producer Hisashi Nogami and programming director Shintaro Sato. The two weighed in on topics such as the game’s competitive nature and Salmon Run.
As usual, we’ve highlighted some of the noteworthy excerpts below. Head on over here for the full interview.
More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Shintaro Sato, Splatoon 2, top
Designer talks about how Retro Studios turned an original FPS into Metroid Prime
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GameCube, News, Wii | 15 Comments
Metroid Prime has a pretty interesting development history. Before it was a Metroid game, Retro Studios was working on an original first-person shooter that had no ties to anything Nintendo-related. It was only when the big N stepped in and saw a level of the game that the game eventually morphed into Metroid Prime.
Speaking in the latest issue of Switch Player, senior designer Mike Wikan noted:
“When I came on board, the Engine group was significantly behind schedule and there was no way to create gameplay demonstrables in an effective fashion. I was told, quite literally, by leadership that designers would design the game on paper, then hand it off to engineering and art to create it. In my opinion that was insanity.”
“When Nintendo arrived suddenly, wanting to see demonstrables of all the games that the teams were working on, only our FPS had demonstrable real-time scriptable content. Nintendo liked what they saw and proposed we adapt that game and viewpoint, but restart it as a Metroid game.”
“The moral of the story is that if you see a problem, work to solve it; don’t assume someone else will take that responsibility on.”
More: interview, Metroid Prime, Mike Wikan, Retro Studios, top
Fire Emblem Warriors devs on hardcore mode, permadeath, choosing characters, more
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in New Nintendo 3DS, News, Switch | 31 Comments
Kotaku caught up with Intelligent Systems’ Masahiro Higuchi and Koei Tecmo’s Yosuke Hayashi for a chat about Fire Emblem Warriors at E3. The developers spoke about the hardcore mode, permadeath, how they went about choosing characters, and more. Higuchi also showed some interest in wanting to remake Famicom Wars.
Head past the break for notable comments from Higuchi and Hayashi. The full interview is on Kotaku here.
Video: Doug Bowser on tournaments, third-parties on Switch, Smash Bros., and more
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Switch | 10 Comments
A new interview has popped up with Doug Bowser, senior VP of sales and marketing at Nintendo of America. Bowser was asked about a few different topics, including tournaments, third-party games on Switch, and Smash Bros. Watch the interview in full below .
Continuing on from the video above, Bowser took on the journalist who interviewed him in ARMS. You can see how he did in the video below.
Our video of my @thetruebowser Arms match got lost in the E3 sauce. A full edit may never see the light of day so I'm leaking it on Twitter! pic.twitter.com/FHTATYEmh4
— avier Harding (@iamxavier) June 19, 2017
More: Arms, Doug Bowser, interview
Psyonix will continue to work with and update Rocket League rather than making sequels
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 25 Comments
Psyonix isn’t setting its sights on creating sequels to Rocket League. Rather than turning it into a franchise, the main game will continue to receive updates and released across new generations of hardware.
Jeremy Dunham from Psyonix told Engadget in a new interview:
“We’re not trying to build six Rocket Leagues. We’re not looking forward to when Rocket League 2 and 3 and 4 are coming out. Rocket League is the game we’re gonna keep updating. It’s important to us to keep that going, cross-generation, across multiple platforms without sacrificing anything.”
Rocket League is a similar position as Minecraft. Minecraft itself has been so hugely popular that a sequel hasn’t been necessary, and the game is continually updated and put out on new systems.
More: interview, Jeremy Dunham, Psyonix, Rocket League
Reggie says the 4K audience is “a bit too limited,” talks fan feedback
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 63 Comments
Don’t expect Nintendo to pursue 4K gaming anytime soon. While that’s something other console manufacturers are starting to focus on, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime believes that the audience is currently “a bit too limited.”
That’s what Reggie shared with The Verge during an interview last week. He stressed the importance of Nintendo reaching as many people as possible and having them engage and enjoy the company’s various games.
Reggie’s full comments:
“The Nintendo mission is to reach as many consumers as possible and to have them engage and have fun with our [intellectual property]. That’s what we try and do. So inherently, we go for a more mainstream audience. Inherently, we want our products to be affordable. We want our products to be easy to pick up and experience, low learning curve. We want our IP to shine as we deliver these experiences.
More: interview, Reggie Fils-Aime, top
SEGA not worried about splitting the market with Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces launching this year
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 12 Comments
SEGA has two new Sonic games launching this year. Sonic Mania is set for August, followed by Sonic Forces this holiday.
Even though SEGA is bringing out a pair of Sonic titles within just a few months of each other, the company doesn’t view that as an issue. SEGA of Europe vice president John Clark told GamesBeat that there isn’t any concern about splitting the market. Clark believes that Mania could attract the core Sonic fans while Forces has the potential for a broader appeal.
Clark said:
“It’s like asking, ‘Will a Sonic fan only buy one Sonic game?’ We think they both occupy different audiences. Initially we wanted to appeal to the core fan. We want to deliver a strong experience that’s going to immediately give such strong and instant gratification, if you like, from accessing it. And then we want to appeal to a broader audience, which is where Forces comes into it. But who’d have thought that this retro-looking game, developed by Christian Whitehead and the team he’s put together, a community developer, and then Sonic Team developing Sonic Forces — that, for us, is a real step change. It’s something we wouldn’t have expected to see, say, 10 years ago. That, in itself, was very exciting for us, and hopefully for fans as well.”
More: interview, John Clark, SEGA, Sonic Forces, Sonic Mania
GungHo’s first Switch game will be released in the west, CEO on Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition, more
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Switch | 7 Comments
GungHo Online Entertainment is officially working on a new game for Switch. We don’t know what it is exactly, but the project was teased as an “action game for all ages with a lighter, comical tone.”
GungHo’s Switch title won’t just be for Japan. President and CEO Kazuki Morishita has confirmed plans for the west, and the company may have other titles for the console as well.
Morishita spoke about this and more in an interview with Nintendo Life. Aside from Switch, he touched on Puzzle & Dragons as well as working with Nintendo on Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition.
You can read some comments from Morishita below. The full interview is located here.
Bandai Namco on how Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden came about
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 6 Comments
The new fighter Dragon Ball FighterZ has received a great deal of attention since its announcement at E3. However, it’s not the first time that Bandai Namco and Arc System Works are partnering on this sort of game. The two companies worked together on Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden, which came to 3DS in 2015.
With Dragon Ball FighterZ having been revealed, Game Informer spoke with producer Tomoko Hiroki about Extreme Butoden’s origins. When asked why Bandai Namco was interested in working with Arc System Works in the first place, Hiroki explained:
“Because we’ve had games like Super Butoden (a fighting game that released on the Super Nintendo) we’ve had a lot of fans saying, ‘We believe the roots of Dragon Ball [in games] are actually 2D fighting games.’ And we knew that Arc System Works had this pedigree. That’s where we felt their appeal was, and why we’re deciding to work with them.”
Dragon Ball FighterZ is currently not planned for Switch. Hiroki has suggested that it could come to the console with enough fan interest, however.
