Psyonix Talks About Bringing Rocket League To Nintendo Switch

One big get for Nintendo was the immensely fun and super popular Rocket League. The game has been on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, for quite some time and has legions of fans. IGN recently interviewed Psyonix vice president Jeremy Dunham about the process of bringing the game to the Nintendo Switch as well as working with Nintendo. Here’s what Dunham had to say about the experience.

• For a while, Psyonix was unsure if Rocket League would be on Switch
• This was due to the system’s architecture being different from the likes of PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC
• Nintendo has also shown continued excitement in having the game on its console
• Dunham says Nintendo has been “fantastic to work with”
• Nintendo came to Psyonix before the Switch was unveiled
• Since Rocket League is reliant on performance, Psyonix weren’t sure if a port would hit their personal level of satisfaction
• When Psyonix asked Nintendo about cross-network play, Nintendo said, “whatever you need”
• Psyonix controls everything, including the match-making system, and all information is hidden from other platforms
• You only know that your opponent is playing on another platform – not specifically Xbox, PC, etc.
• Every version of the game is the same
• The Switch version will offer all DLC available on other platforms
• DLC is simply cosmetic, which will be the case with any Nintendo content created such as the Mario hat
• All updates are rolled out simultaneously across platforms
• Every platform holder has its own requirements for the submission period
• This means patches have to be submitted for the various platforms at different points
• Psyonix isn’t at the certification point with Nintendo just yet
• Psyonix has gone through some pre-certification steps
• This involves setting things up to let Nintendo know what will be in the game to prepare for the certification build
• The plan is a holiday release, and Psyonix won’t give an official date until they’re confident in one
• Psyonix recommends playing Rocket League with the Switch Pro Controller
• The team had some challenges with the Joy-Con, but they believe they’ve figured it out and feedback at E3 was positive
• Psyonix had long discussions after its meeting with Nintendo about the pros and cons of bringing the game to Switch
• They had to think about the controls, things like latency, and other factors
• The more they learned more about the system and tinkered around with the hardware, they better they felt
• Psyonix didn’t commit to releasing Rocket League on Switch until April or so
• The team has to do “a lot of custom work” for online play on Switch, which is required when a new platform is thrown in the mix
• It’s a “challenge”, but Dunham is “confident” that they’ll tackle all concerns players might have
• It hasn’t been as easy as going from PlayStation/PC to Xbox since those platforms share some similar principles
• Psyonix isn’t sure where they’ll be at launch when it comes to voice chat

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