Bethesda Softworks is busy prepping Fallout 76 for its full launch, holding betas on Xbox One and soon for PC and PS4 to test its performance. While we’re still wrapping our heads around the game, it seems that it won’t follow the trend of other Bethesda titles and come to the Nintendo Switch. Pete Hines, Bethesda SVP of global marketing, recently confirmed that a Switch version simply “wasn’t doable”.
During a panel at PAX AUS (as reported by GameSpot), Hines said: “If the game will work on it, we want it to be on every platform possible. Fallout 76 is not because it just wasn’t doable. But honestly, there is no game in development that we haven’t had a conversation about [bringing it to Switch].”
Switch ports aren’t “a mandate” for its various developers. However, Bethesda is looking at DOOM (2016) and Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus as good reference points for bringing Xbox One/PS4 titles to the Nintendo Switch. Also, having seen the Switch’s performance since release, Hines notes that “it’s a viable platform” for the company.
“You go where the money is because that’s how you stay in business,” Hines said. “What we have seen compels us to say, ‘[Switch] is a viable platform for the kind of things we do going forward.'”
While we don’t know what Bethesda Game Studios could have planned for the Switch, developers like id Software have announced DOOM Eternal for the platform. Developed along with Panic Button (which also handled the previous DOOM port), it will be out in 2019. It will be running at 30 frames per second, like its predecessor, but this won’t hamper the experience, according to id Software’s Marty Stratton.
