Lack Of Shooters On Switch Could Benefit Warface, Dev Says

The free-to-play FPS Warface launched on Nintendo Switch earlier this week with little fanfare and no pre-announcements. It came as a total surprise, as the Switch is not known best as a platform for online shooters. Developer My.Games has now explained why it wanted to bring Warface to Switch.

Head of global publishing Alexey Izotov told GI.biz that the lack of many online shooters for Switch provides the opportunity for Warface to stand out.

“The lack of online shooters on Switch is a strong advantage for us,” he said. “We know this market really well, so we saw an opportunity to bring our experience in the FPS genre to this growing platform. We are also one of the very few players on the market with continuously successful F2P games on consoles.”

The Switch might not have a roster of online games as deep as what’s available on PS4 and Xbox One, but it does have a number of juggernauts such as Fortnite and Overwatch, as well as Nintendo’s Splatoon 2.

Regarding the surprise release, Izotov said the studio wanted to show, not tell, and allow players to immediately try the game for themselves. “We decided that in order to properly speak about the game, we must be able to immediately show it,” Izotov said. “We wanted our community to see that we’re invested in developing the Warface franchise across different platforms: PC, home consoles, mobile, and now Nintendo Switch. And the immediacy of being able to play it right away was very important for us.”

Warface is the first game developed using the CryEngine to launch on Nintendo Switch. The Switch version was developed using a “heavily customized” version of the engine, according to GI.biz. The game has a lower resolution and frame rate on Switch, due to the console’s power relative to PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but Izotov said he’s happy with what the team achieved.

“When talking PvP content, we rely on the following principles: stable framerate, debugged network code, and fixed resolution. The game’s look and feel shouldn’t change depending on the amount of action on the screen. We believe we have managed to achieve this,” he said.

Finally, Izotov explained that My.Games is considering the possibility of adding cross-play for Warface across PS4, Xbox One, and Switch at some in the future.

Go to GI.biz to read the full interview.

In 2019, the team behind Warface left original developer Crytek Kiev to form their own studio, Blackwood Games, which works in tandem with My.Games to maintain the free-to-play shooter.