In celebration of the meditative oceanic adventure ABZÛ arriving on the Nintendo Switch eShop at the end of this month, the creative director Matt Nava at developer Giant Squid and the team at publisher 505 Games recently held a Reddit AMA.
When asked about Switch development for ABZÛ, Nava said the port presented a lot of "technical challenges" and it was by no means an easy undertaking to get the game up and running. He also said the team at Giant Squid was astounded the developers at Room 8 were able to pull it off:
“The underwater environment posed a lot of technical challenges... We had a fantastic dev team at Room 8 port ABZÛ to switch, and it was not an easy undertaking. the game simulates tens of thousands of fish and an equally large amount of dynamic kelp leaves. It also has a unique fog accumulation technique that allows different spaces to have different colors and densities volumetrically. All these critical features were originally designed for the powerful specs of the PS4 and PCs, and hard to be drastically optimized to run on the Switch. I'll be honest- a lot of the team was astounded that Room 8 was able to pull it off! I am super happy with it, it runs great and the game feels like a great fit for the Switch.”
He explained the technical side of development a little bit further when queried about the resolution changes in the game:
“Yes there were some pretty low level code optimizations, especially for the fog. There were also optimizations to the visuals, mostly LOD distance tuning. Fortunately, we were able to do extensive tests to make sure that there are no major LOD pops with the new settings!”
According to 505 Games, ABZÛ runs at 30fps, 720p docked and 540p in handheld mode. When asked if there was a plan for a physical release, 505 Games explained there were currently were no plans, but it would investigate this further. One rogue comment also asked about 505 bringing the Roll7 game Laser League to the Switch. Apparently, there are no plans to port it right now.
In one other interesting reply, Nava confirmed the Endless Ocean games were a key source of inspiration for ABZÛ alongside the underwater classic Ecco The Dolphin. Nava even went as far as saying he would like to see an Endless Ocean reboot:
“I played the Endless Ocean games before ABZÛ began development… the game aimed to do a scuba simulation, and it did a great job. However, they always left me wanting more freedom, smoother controls, and more focus on atmosphere, which is was what we tried to deliver with ABZÛ. but I am secretly still hoping for an Endless Ocean reboot.”
Are you looking forward to the release of this game? Would you also like to see Endless Ocean resurface? Tell us below.
[source reddit.com]
Comments 23
There's a very specific part of the game with swirling fish that made my older graphics card chug down to 25. I wonder if I get to that part the Switch would explode.
Makes sense, the game is far more demanding than it may seem at first judging it strictly on its visual style. Here's hoping that all the hard work put into it has resulted in a quality port, as it'd be awesome to add this game to the list of prestigious indies on Switch.
I second the hope for more Endless Ocean - the game I immediately thought of when I saw ABZÛ in the eShop.
This should be great to hold me over tho...
I just might have to buy this game out of curiosity. ABZU can sometimes chug on my pc so I can't imagine how well it will run on a Switch. Warframe was a surprise, so who knows.
More Endless Ocean, please.
They have me sold purely based on them mentioning Endless Ocean. If they used that as an influence then I will give them my money. I’m excited.
Ahh, good old fog!
It's always the Little Things that end up pulling much more calculation power than you'd expect.
It's been great over the past year to hear some of these stories about beautiful productions from more art-oriented teams getting optimized for Switch by old-school code crunchers.
It's exciting to see them consistently pull it off without damaging the overall feel of the games, and I'm suspecting it to be a real boost of confidence and ambition for the original studios that their games really can look that good and run on anything.
This is a wonderful game and a great suit for Switch. I hope it is well received.
I’m also glad they pushed through with the technical difficulties. I am sure there are many games that COULD be ported to Switch, but there are too many developers who won’t try simply because it “won’t look as good” or maybe they don’t value the Switch audience as much as they should.
I personally don’t mind if it doesn’t look as good as a more powerful console’s version. As long as they treasure their work and provide a well optimised port which runs smoothly, it will get the credit it deserves.
@DigDoug91 @SCAssassin Weird. No issues on PS4 as far as I can remember. Maybe just a case of bad optimisation PC.
Well hell if PewDiePie recommends it then it must be good lol
Needs more Hayley Westenra
It looks pretty neat. I want to hear how it runs first but if it's a good port I might try it. Although admittedly, I never made very it far in Endless Ocean, freaks me out a little.
I have to admit, for now I don't want it anymore. I try to avoid non-native resolutions in handheld mode, so the 540p is an issue for me.
Maybe in a sale, as it does generally seem to be my kind of game.
Someone remember innerspace? That ran on 720p I believe, but on a bad framerate. Maybe the Abzu devs made the right choice... let's see.
I've been wanting a new Endless Ocean game since the 2nd game came out. T_T
This game interested me on PS4 but I skipped it because it looked like an underwater no mans sky.
Id love an Endless Ocean sequel though.
@CaPPa It's like an underwater Journey. A linear game, probably around 3 hours long. Limited interaction with the environment to complete simple puzzles/tasks. Don't expect a grand open world adventure game.
I've never heard of this but I'm instantly intrigued! It looks really good!
It's pretty impressive that they managed to get it running too, lots of objects and volumetric lighting usually slows things down...
Not surprised even my PS4 chugged along at the later part of the game
This is right up my alley, but I fear it'll trip my motion sickness.
Fe was my most recent big miss for that.
It is super frustrating to buy a game, play it ten minutes, and then realize you are horribly sick.
I wish I could try it first, or get a refund if it made me ill.
Judging by the video, this almost looks like a visual downgrade from Endless Ocean 2 on the Wii despite the Switch having significantly more powerful hardware. I think it's the lighting effects which look rather flat and don't convey that feeling of being underwater.
Looks fantastic. This has been on my Steam wishlist since it's release. I'm glad I waited, I would much rather have it on my Switch.
@Pod remember the N64 days, when fog was a crutch for performance!
very interested in this game, but i'll wait to read the reviews, just due to what sounds like a challenging technical job.
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