Overwatch Took Over A Year To Port To Switch, Nintendo Encouraged Motion Controls

Today we have some interesting news to share with you about Overwatch: Legendary Edition, launching for Nintendo Switch in a few weeks.

Vooks spoke to Principal Game Producer Wes Yanagi to find out more about the game. One of the things discussed was gyro controls. According to Yanagi, during early discussions with Nintendo, the company encouraged Blizzard to look into supporting motion controls on Nintendo Switch. They were skeptical about it at first, but it soon grew on them:

It came about early on with our initial discussions with Nintendo. They expressed how it was a popular feature on the Nintendo Switch and encouraged us to investigate it. A few of us were a little skeptical at first, but after doing a bunch of research and experimenting with various implementations, it really grew on us. I think most people who spend time learning the controls really like it a lot.

Yanagi also revealed work started on the Switch version of Overwatch “a little over a year ago”, so development should have started sometime in late 2018.

Work on the Switch version of Overwatch started a little over a year ago. There is a bit of complexity trying to catchup to a constantly evolving game. But getting Overwatch running is just the tip of the iceberg. Adding a new platform also means making sure it works within the entire Blizzard infrastructure. Many developers in all parts of the company, especially Battle.net, had a hand in bringing the Switch version to life.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.