Although the formal announcement of Blizzard’s Overwatch releasing onto the Nintendo Switch in October was one of the worst-kept secrets of the September Nintendo Direct presentation, most were still happy to hear the news. Now, we are learning that the game will be running at 30 FPS, which seems reasonable considering the scope of the port, but may still disappoint some players.
PowerUp recently spoke to a Blizzard spokesperson about the port to the Switch. Above all else, Blizzard wanted to give players on the Nintendo Switch the best possible gameplay they could, and would not accept a simplified version of the game. To do so, the spokesperson stated that "spent a significant amount of time optimizing and adjusting the engine to perform well on Switch as well as take advantage of the platform’s strengths.”
As such, one way to achieve this was to cap the framerate at 30 FPS, regardless of being docked or not. While docked, the game should put out 900p, and undocked, should be 720p. One may wonder how this may affect the gameplay specifically, if it will slow down the action when multiple characters sync up for a devastating group of Ultimate moves against an opposing team.
Since there is virtually no hope of the game ever featuring any form of cross-play between the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or the PC, players will most likely not have any issues with this framerate. While some players may not enjoy the limitation to 30, as most would prefer at least 60, the port itself is a rather impressive accomplishment.
Still, some players might be disappointed to hear the news, especially when so many other games work quite well at 60 FPS, either locked or targeted, including Mortal Kombat 11, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Super Mario Party, Diablo 3, and many more.
While we are not yet privy to the details of how this port came to be, there were likely all manner of challenges associated with its creation. Now the only thing we can ask for is a reasonably small download size, since the game will not be receiving a physical release.
The game will include all 31 characters, 28 maps, and current game modes for play. As always, we can expect additional features and characters to be added in the future, especially with the long-term investments being made into the game as an esport.
Source: Powerup.com, Digitaltrends.com