Guerilla Games talks about having LEGO Horizon Adventures on Switch

One of the more surprising announcements out of the Summer Game Fest showcase was the reveal of the new Switch game LEGO Horizon Adventures. Although it was leaked previously, no one expected it to appear on Nintendo’s console. Yet PlayStation’s big franchise is now crossing over with LEGO, and it will indeed be available on Switch before the year is over.

Guerrilla Games narrative director James Windeler was recently asked to weigh in on the announcement. Ultimately, it sounds like the decision to support Switch was to reach more potential players, including families and younger gamers. Windeler also said the team “received very helpful support from Nintendo.”

Here’s the full explanation from Windeler regarding having LEGO Horizon Adventures on Switch, which comes from a recent Famitsu interview we translated:

It was surprising to see Horizon, known for being a Sony Interactive Entertainment first-party series, to expand to the Switch as well. Was there any resistance to providing this game to rival hardware? What kind of discussions were there?

Teaming up with Nintendo was a really exciting and unique opportunity. To have Nintendo accept this project was a humbling experience that we took seriously.

A major goal or aim we set for this game was “to widen the reach of Horizon to gamers”. We wanted more people to become familiar with our games.

For example, you can sit on the couch and play together with your wife, or cooperate with hardcore fans of Horizon from the other side of the world. I have an 11-year-old niece and an 8-year-old niece, but since all the games I’ve made have been for older demographics I haven’t been able to play with them.

When we thought about making a family-friendly game that these kids could play too, we thought it would be a great choice to release it on the Nintendo Switch.

Was this the first time you had made a game for the Switch? Was development difficult?

It was a first for me, but there were a lot of members of our team that had experience developing for the Switch, so it wasn’t particularly hard.

Regardless of the hardware, one thing we paid a lot of attention to was, since this game was meant to “deliver Horizon to as many people as possible”, we wanted to keep the controls simple. That might have been a first for us, but we thought of it as a positive opportunity instead of a difficulty during development.

As for developing for the Switch, we received very helpful support from Nintendo.

LEGO Horizon Adventures launches on Switch this holiday. Let us know in the comments if you plan on picking it up later in the year. For more on the game, head on over here.

Translation provided by Simon Griffin, Philip Proctor, and SatsumaFS on behalf of Nintendo Everything.