NBA Playgrounds’ Switch Enhanced Edition Fiasco Explained

NBA Playgrounds has faced numerous “challenges” on the Nintendo Switch since launching back on the May 2017. First, the Switch version was not up to par with those seen on other consoles, most notably in the features. The game even launched on the Switch without including online play.

Although the developers continually patch the game, putting in new features and even DLC to make it as close as possible to the other platforms, it really just isn’t up to par with the rest.

In a sort of weird turn of events, last week, Saber Interactive went on to take down NBA Playgrounds and replaced the game with an updated NBA Playgrounds: Enhanced Edition. Although players who have bought the Original NBA Playgrounds would get to download the Enhanced Edition for free, it also meant that players who wish to get the new “update” would have to download the Enhanced Edition, then delete to Original edition.

Speaking with Polygon, Saber Interactive explained their radical decision to “re-release” the game instead of just patching it. As they have explained, the team at Saber Interactive had to re-optimise the game for the Switch as it was developed on an antiquated version of Unreal. The result was a how chuck of code changes that can’t be easily done with a patch while following Nintendo’s guidelines. That is why the team decided to “re-release it”

“When we first developed NBA Playgrounds, we used a pre-release version of Unreal, and since then we’ve learned a lot about optimizing for this new system,” Saber continued. “Unfortunately, the code had changed so substantially that a simple patch wasn’t feasible while also staying within platform guidelines. The amount of content we were working with, combined with the reduction in file size, ultimately resulted in the need to release this as a new game.”

If you are wondering too what extra benefit the Enhanced edition got, it comes with everything that is already in the Original game including the online play patches and free DLCs. The game’s file size has also been reduced from 9.6GB to 7.6GB.

If you are still on the Original NBA Playgrounds, it is recommended that you download the Enhanced Edition as soon as possible as you will not be able to play online against Enhanced Edition players on the Original game. If you would like to know more about the situation, you can head on to Polygon here.