NetEase Games is looking into bringing its popular hero shooter Marvel Rivals to the Nintendo Switch 2. Speaking to IGN, the developer was asked about the possibility of porting the game to new console, and apparently talks with Nintendo are already underway.
"We're already in contact with Nintendo and working on some development kits," Marvel Rivals producer Wicong Wu told IGN. "And whenever we find that we could provide great performance for our game on Switch 2, we're open to that."
"The reason why we didn't launch it onto the Switch, it was the first generation of that device they cannot provide a great experience for our gameplay," Wu continued. "So if it could achieve that goal, we're open to that."
Performance is a reason many third-party developers chose to skip the Nintendo Switch. While the Switch has been incredibly successful -- it's Nintendo's best-selling home console and the third best-selling game console of all-time -- most of its success came on the back of Nintendo's strong portfolio of first-party titles.
As popular as the hybrid console has been, the internal hardware just wasn't powerful enough to play many third-party games at a level deemed worthy. As a result, the Switch has missed out on some of the bigges video games and franchises. Although that hasn't had a major impact on the Switch's sales, Nintendo has seemingly made it a point of emphasis to improve the hardware specs for the Switch 2.
Nintendo still hasn't gone into detail about the Switch 2's internals, but a special Nintendo Direct is scheduled for April which should provide more information. Officially announced last month, the Nintendo Switch 2 appears to be bigger and more powerful and could even offer some new features, such as the rumored mouse-like controller functinoality. This could make playing Marvel Rivals feel a bit more like you're on PC.
Although we still don't have a launch lineup, there are plenty of rumors of other games joining the Switch 2's lineup, including Starfield, Fallout 4, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, and an unspecificed Call of Duty game. The Switch 2 reveal trailer also seemed to reveal a new untitled Mario Kart game. One would assume if these games can run on the Switch 2, then Marvel Rivals should have no problem.
With the Switch 2 slated to launch this year and the Nintendo Direct just a few months away, we should get more clarity on the console's hardware and launch lineup soon.