It appears Psyonix is taking a page out of Nintendo’s book. We reported earlier that Psyonix was considering whether or not it wanted to bring Rocket League to Nintendo Switch, and at E3 2017, we got the full confirmation and reveal on Nintendo’s E3 2017 Spotlight stream. IGN caught up with Psyonix Vice President Jeremy Dunham and Producer Bobby Garza to dive into more details about Rocket League on Nintendo Switch.
From the game’s E3 announcement, we know that Rocket League on Switch will support cross-network multiplayer with Xbox One and Steam, and that all current game modes, including Season mode, Hoops, Drop Shot, Rumble, and Snowday, will be available at launch. The new information, then, is that the game will run at a consistent and native 720p, 60 fps in both docked and handheld modes.
“Performance was what mattered most to us, so we aim to make sure that the game runs at 60 fps docked and undocked,” Dunham said. The pair also mentioned that the game will support up to eight Switch systems pairing locally for multiplayer, as well as supporting up to four players to play splitscreen while docked and two players when undocked.
“We don’t think people want to squint that much to see four players on an undocked system,” Dunham explained. Psyonix is aiming for 60 fps during splitscreen multiplayer, but it hasn’t promised such a frame rate just yet—same with Switch-specific functionality, such as HD Rumble and motion controls.
Garza also explained how Mario Kart 8 Deluxe inspired them to port Rocket League over to Switch:
“The fact that they’re getting 60 fps docked and undocked, even in splitscreen [with two players in Mario Kart 8] is a huge thing for us, and then how seamless the multiplayer experience is. Their lobby system isn’t as complex as ours, but it’s so easy to use.
“We weren’t entirely sure it was going to be possible for a lot of technical reasons, but I thought we should absolutely try it after playing through the Mario Kart [multiplayer].”
And, given the game’s announcement as well as all these details, I’d say that “try” is turning into success. Even if they don’t hit 60 fps in split screen, I think that would hardly be a complaint when you can take what I would consider one of the best games of the last five years on the go. To me, this is the perfect game for a few rounds of online during a lunch break. Rocket League is the perfect bite-sized experience to take with you, and I can’t wait until the game launches this holiday season.
