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Interview: Just How Does The Outer Worlds Fare on Nintendo Switch?

Resolution, texture quality, and more in an interview with Obsidian

Poorna Shankar Posted:
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Interviews 0

We recently had the opportunity to interview Obsidian about the Switch version of The Outer Worlds. Our discussion ranged from how the team was utilizing the Switch’s unique features, to what being a recently-minted Xbox Games Studio team means to them.

The Outer Worlds is available to Nintendo Switch today for $59.99. You can grab the game here on the eShop. The answers to our questions were provided by Eric DeMilt, Production Director on The Outer Worlds. We’d like to thank Eric and the team for their time providing these answers. On with the interview!

The Outer Worlds for Switch was announced some time ago, and understandably delayed due to the current pandemic. What was the primary impetus to port over The Outer Worlds to Switch?

DEMILT: As a development team of “game nerds” and fans of “Nintendo anything…” we were super excited so see the game go to the Nintendo Switch. The primary driver, however, came from our publishing partners at Private Division, and their conversations with Nintendo. Both felt The Outer Worlds would be a good fit for the platform and its catalog of games. This really drove the kick off of the port.

I played The Outer Worlds on PC completely maxed out. What specifically are the technical differences between the maxed-out PC experience and the Switch versions (both docked and handheld)? 

DEMILT: The technical differences are pretty much exactly what you’d expect them to be. The Nintendo Switch is an amazing piece of hardware, but the game had to be modified to account for differences in memory, CPU, and GPU capabilities. Unreal Engine 4 is powerful, and makes cross-platform development a lot easier, but you don’t just flip a switch (apologies) and have it output a working Nintendo Switch version. A lot of work went on under the hood by the experienced team of Switch developers at Virtuos to get the port done. Players can expect a full-featured Outer Worlds experience at 30 FPS with 720p in handheld and 1080p docked.

Editor’s Note: Digital Foundry’s recent analysis have discovered to be the actual resolution of The Outer Worlds to typically be 720p while docked (with dynamic resolution dropping this lower), and 540p while in handheld, with drops as low as 384p.

The blog post announcing the June 5 date mentions “high resolution textures” for the Switch version. Given the memory deficit of the Switch relative to consoles and especially PC, what is the exact resolution of these textures we can expect to see? Are these the same textures used on PC? Or has the team created bespoke textures specifically for the Switch version?

DEMILT: Texture resolution varies from asset-to-asset depending on it’s in game usage. In general, textures were authored for 4k usage on launch platforms.  The source is the same for all platforms, including the Switch.  In some cases, we were able to use lower mips or procedurally down res textures, to meet Switch requirements, in other cases we hand optimized textures or objects to retain the quality we wanted.  There was no “one size, fits all” approach.  We’ve continued to work on more asset by asset improvements past the cart version, in parallel to taking in things like UI scaling, which is what you’ll be seeing in that day one patch.  

Editor’s Note: Digital Foundry’s analysis finds texture resolution to be quite low, with some textures failing to load in certain instances. You can read their analysis linked above in the previous question's Editor's Note, or watch the video below.

Are you implementing something “special” or different for the Switch version? In other words, in what ways (if any) are you taking advantage of the Switch’s uniqueness in delivering a “Switch” gameplay experience, such as utilizing the touch screen while in handheld mode?

DEMILT: We did make some unique changes on the Switch to improve gameplay and controllability. We introduced new features like aim assist, and support for motion aiming, and exposed more controller sensitivity values to the user. We focused primarily on bringing a complete gameplay experience of The Outer Worlds to the platform.

The Switch in handheld mode, while great, creates certain design challenges from a UI perspective. How have you had to rework the UI to make the information clear and concise for the gamer given the smaller screen experience in handheld mode?

DEMILT: The Switch in handheld is great! Being able to take a high-quality gaming experience anywhere you want, is incredible, but I do understand what you mean. Bringing an Obsidian-RPG experience to the small screen did have its challenges. This is another place where the experience of the team at Virtuos really paid off.  Rather than port everything “as-is” and wait to see what broke, the Virtuous did a detailed analysis of all the game’s UIs and identified areas were rework to UI/UX would be necessary to have things play well on the platform. These were handled on a case-by-case-basis; updated designs or layouts were proposed, reviewed to ensure nothing else broke, implemented, tested and tuned.

Several Switch ports feature cross-save integration with PC like Divinity Original Sin 2, Witcher 3, and more. Will The Outer Worlds feature cross-save with the PC versions (Game Pass PC, and Steam)?

DEMILT: Unfortunately, no.  The Outer Worlds will not support cross-saves.

Will the Switch version feature content parity with the PC version on release day?

DEMILT: Yes, Switch is a full-featured experience of The Outer Worlds with some Switch-only controller features.  With the inclusion of the day one patch, the Switch will also include all fixes and improvements, including UI scaling, that can be found on other platforms today.

What has becoming an Xbox Game Studio meant for you specifically, and your team? For example, will you continue to operate relatively independently? Or does Microsoft have a bigger say in your creative process? What does being an Xbox Game Studio actually mean day-to-day, and in the bigger picture?

DEMILT: Day-to-day, being an Xbox Game Studio has been nearly invisible to many of us on the development side of things. Anyone working on content for The Outer Worlds still works with our publishing partners, Private Division. 

I guess we’ve missed some of the normal post-release ups and downs that an independent studio goes through. To date, Microsoft has been completely supportive creatively, helped amplify The Outer Worlds with launch marketing, and have been supportive partners with Private Division. 

Given that you folks are now an Xbox Game Studios company, will we continue to see future Obsidian titles release on platforms apart from Xbox and PC? This may be difficult for you to comment on, but any insight would be appreciated given that you do have fans of your work across all the platforms.

DEMILT: I’ve been doing this a long time, so the only thing I know about the platforms that we’ll ship on is that nothing is certain. Microsoft as our parent and publisher on products going forward, will make the decision on what platforms we support and when we support them. People speculate that means PC and XBX only, but I remember a pre-Microsoft console era, I can get Outlook and Teams on my iPhone today, and I know the future of games, higher-speed connectivity, and the push for streaming, will bring changes we cannot even imagine today