A recent interview that
Metro News had with with Pete Hines from Bethesda reveals a bit of information regarding the relationship the company has had with Nintendo, the possibility to make a Nintendo Switch exclusive in the future, and maybe even have one of their characters make an appearance in the highly anticipated
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
One of the things tht many people have been surprised by is this new relationship that Nintendo and Bethesda have—by having Bethesda port games like
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,
Doom, and
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus to the Nintendo Switch.
When asked about this new-found relationship with Nintendo, Pete Hines mentioned that they have always had good relations with Nintendo but,in the past, their games couldn't always be ported due to technical limitations.
"
Well, here’s the thing. We’ve always gotten on well with Nintendo, it’s just a question of do the games that we make… technically are they a fit for the platforms that they’re making? In the past the simple answer has been no. Like, Skyrim did not run on anything that Nintendo was making. Could we have changed a bunch of stuff to make it work? Maybe. But that’s not our approach".
Then, Hines mentions that things are different with the Nintendo Switch, making it easier for them, or other developers like Panic Button—who are the ones that managed to successfully port
Doom and
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus to the Switch—to port their technically demanding games.
"
But in the case of the Switch the game as we made it, does it run on this? Yeah, it does! It runs well. And so Skryim, Wolf, Doom 2016, Doom Eternal, Shelter, Legends – all of those things are things we’ve said, 'Look, this either can or will run well on a Switch'. And we continue to look at every game that we make, because we want as many people to play it as possible. I have my Switch with me here in Germany, I think it’s great to be able to take games you love with you".
Another thing that Hines mentions is about the possibility of Bethesda developing a game exclusively on the Nintendo Switch and the thing about it is that it's always up to the developers, and what kind of ideas they have.
"
It’s possible, but that’s up to the devs in terms of what game is it that they’d be talking about... We’re always having conversations with them, but again those conversations wouldn’t necessarily take place with me, they’d take place with a dev to say, 'We have an idea for a this or a that and we wanna do a game that is a crossover with the Switch'".
Right before the interview was over, and on account of Hines bringing up a potential crossover with Nintendo, he was asked whether they've talked with Nintendo about maybe including one of their characters in the upcoming
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, to what Hines simply replied with a "
Oh Yeah", although he didn't elaborate more on the question.
This new partnership that Nintendo and Bethesda have is already paying off and Nintendo Switch owners have been able to take titles like Doom and Skyrim on-the-go, not to mention that Bethesda officially announced that the
Doom: Eternal was also being developed for the Switch—showing that they are very serious about making games for Nintendo's handheld hybrid console that aren't just ports.