Because of the technical specs of the Nintendo Switch, not every game can be ported to it for one reason or another. But, many developers have been working hard to do just that because they KNOW that gamers on the Switch are not just numerous, but they want to play some of these big games. One of the hardest-working devs that prove this is Moon Studios, the team behind the Ori franchise.
They brought in Ori and the Blind Forest via its Definitive Edition and it did really well on Switch. So then they decided to bring its beloved sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps to Switch as well. But it wasn’t as easy as you might think.
Moon Studios co-founder Gennadiy Korol stated the following in an interview with Nintendo Everything:
“I think all in all the Switch port itself took around 3.5 months to complete and it was quite an intense effort on our teams part! The heavy duty optimization work that we had put in earlier for the Xbox platform patches definitely helped to get a head start on the Switch port. That being said, when we started we were only hitting 24fps even with heavily compromised visuals which was quite a far-cry away from our goal!
As usual, game development is tough and being able to make a game like Will of the Wisps really shine on the Switch required taking quite a few risks and making heavy changes in order to be able to achieve the visual quality we felt Ori deserved on that platform. Luckily those risks really paid off and things really came together towards the end!”
So yeah, they pushed themselves because they wanted to make sure this port came to the Switch AND that it was as high quality as it could possibly be. They succeeded and the game has done well on Switch.
