Feral Interactive has impressed with their latest Switch ports including Grid Autosport and Alien: Isolation. These games offer customization and features for players to tailor to their experiences, like resolution and frame rate options. In a recent interview, Edwin Smith of Feral Interactive talks about the porting process and philosophy behind bringing games to Switch. Here’s the excerpt from Nintendo Life’s interview:
“Having a single piece of hardware to target simplifies the development and QA tasks, all other things being equal. Having said that, all other things are rarely equal…the Switch CPU is not as powerful as most recent mobile handsets so you have to eke out of it all the performance you can and that means lots of performance analysis and optimization, and that takes time and effort.
…There are a number of factors in that process, not least our enthusiasm for the game as a game. But also, technical feasibility, sales potential, platform suitability, code quality, etc. If we are unable to port a game to the level of quality we wish to achieve, then we do not proceed, and occasionally that has happened. You see quite a few ports, which have dropped a number of features from the original game or else are released to run on a limited range of the latest hardware. We think that is self-defeating in that it generates disappointment rather than enjoyment.”
We are looking forward to seeing what Feral works on next for the Switch. Stay tuned at Final Weapon for the latest Japanese gaming news!
