The Outer Worlds Devs on Upcoming Switch Port: We Were "Very, Very Surprised"

On USG's Axe of the Blood God podcast, Leonard Boyarsky sheds some light on how Outer Worlds for Switch came about.

News by Mathew Olson, Reporter

Updated on 28 October 2019

If you're enjoying The Outer Worlds and haven't listened to the latest episode of Axe of the Blood God yet, then your excuse had better be "I'm too busy playing to put the game down." Here's one small takeaway from the episode: Obsidian wasn't 100% on the idea of bringing The Outer Worlds to the Nintendo Switch until its development partners at Virtuos wowed them with a proof of concept.

Co-game director Leonard Boyarsky and narrative designer Nitai Poddar join Kat to talk about The Outer Worlds on the podcast. Announced back in July, the Switch port came as something of a surprise—and apparently, it surprised Boyarsky and the team too.

"I don't remember who first came up with that," Boyarsky tells USgamer in the episode. "It was external to the team. We weren't sure it could be done. But then they started coming out with all these games on Nintendo Switch, and we thought, 'Wow, that's great.' And then we saw the proof of concept from the external team who was doing it and we were very, very surprised."

Obsidian's development partners, Virtuos, have previously handled Switch ports for games such as L.A. Noire, Dark Souls Remastered, and Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age. Remember, even though Obsidian is now part of Xbox Game Studios, The Outer Worlds is published by Private Divsion.

Kat's interview with Boyarsky and Poddar is full of interesting tidibts—it's Poddar's first game project(!)—and great insights about RPG design. It's well worth your time, whether you're currently working your way through The Outer Worlds or waiting for its eventual Switch release.

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Mathew Olson

Reporter

Mathew Olson is a writer formerly of Digg, where he blogged and reported about all things under the umbrella of internet culture (including games, of course). He lives in New York, grew up under rain clouds and the influence of numerous games studios in the Pacific Northwest, and will talk your ear off about Half-Life mods, Talking Heads or Twin Peaks if you let him.

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