Virtuos talks about its approach to Switch ports

There are a few go-to studios for Switch ports these days, including Virtuos. The company has been around since the console released with new versions of games like L.A. Noire, and has continued to support the console since then. Some of its recent work, including Dying Light and NieR: Automata, are said to be among the more impressive ports on Switch.

Virtuos CEO Gilles Langourieux opened up about the team’s approach to Switch ports in a recent issue of Famitsu. Here’s what was shared on that subject:

One could say that Virtuos is a good match for the times.

Gilles: It’s also important to note that the Nintendo Switch is an important platform to Virtuos, market-wise. When developers decide to release games on multiple household consoles, they often develop them for the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S in-house, and then turn to the Nintendo Switch. Many struggle with that porting process, but Virtuos originally worked in asset creation, so we know that area well. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on our direction work on the Nintendo Switch ports of games such as Dying Light: Platinum Edition and NieR: Automata The End of YoRHa Edition.

So you have a lot of know-how when it comes to porting. What sort of tricks of the trade do you know?

Gilles: When working to port something, you want the code to be optimized for the Switch. However, there aren’t any ‘If we do this, it’ll be fine,’ fix-all solutions, you have to create a custom method for each title. Our first step is to run the game on the Switch and from that we can notice and battle any issues that arise, for example, ‘There’s a high burden on the processors at this point, let’s try this!’ We utilize our experience from years of remastering work for that.

Translation provided by Kim Louise Davis and Simon Griffin on behalf of Nintendo Everything.