Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program game seemingly led by former Splatoon directors

New information has come to light that apparently reveals the development leads behind the Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program game.

A patent is now making the rounds that lists Yusuke Amano, Tsubasa Sakaguchi, Masaki Wada, and Shinya Yano as the inventors. Regarding Amano and Sakaguchi, they directed the first Splatoon before going on to work on Nintendo Labo. Wada and Yano were programmers on Ring Fit Adventure.

Amano actually hasn’t been in the director seat since 2018 with the Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion DLC. In 2020, he was credited as a planning supervisor on Animal Crossing: New Horizons. We’ve also been wondering what Sakaguchi has been up to given that his last major role was in 2018, acting as director / software lead for Nintendo Labo.

As for the Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program, it was a bit of a wacky experiment. Only a select group of people were able to get a look at some sort of project Nintendo was cooking up, and it didn’t last terribly long before the whole thing went offline. The gameplay was mainly centered around building, similar to Minecraft, in a sandbox. There were other aspects as well such as the ability to move through the environment by essentially web-slinging.

Thanks to Greatsong1 for the tip and Reddit for the news – the patent is located here. We previously covered leaked details from the Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program here.