Fallout 76 launches in Beta tomorrow on both the PC and PS4, following its Beta release last week on the Xbox One. On the 14th of November, the game will release in full on all three platforms. However, the title has not been announced for the Nintendo Switch, and Pete Hines has now explained that although Bethesda wanted to bring Fallout 76 to the platform; it simply wasn’t “doable.”
Is Fallout 76 Available for Nintendo Switch? Fallout 76 Wasn’t “Doable” on the Nintendo Switch
As reported by GameSpot, Pete Hines spoke on a panel at PAX Aus yesterday, where he addressed the question of whether Fallout 76 would be coming to the Switch. A similar question was recently asked of Matt Firor; the director of The Elder Scrolls: Online. In that instance, Firor explained that the game was simply too large for the Switch to handle. Hines didn’t give a precise reason, though game size certainly could be it, but he did give fans some insight into Bethesda’s view of the Switch; “I can say with certainty that [Nintendo Switch is] a part of every conversation with every dev we have now about what we’re doing going forward,” says Hines; “If the game will work on it, we want it to be on every platform possible. Fallout 76 is not because it just wasn’t doable.
Bethesda’s Opinion of the Nintendo Switch
“But honestly,” he continues; “there is no game in development that we haven’t had a conversation about [bringing it to Switch]. ‘Does this work on the Switch, do you have a plan for the Switch?’ What we have seen compels us to say, ‘[Switch] is a viable platform for the kind of things we do going forward.’ Everything we do has to be developer-led, but it’s something we want to make sure is on folks’ radar.”
“I enjoy us being seen as the third-party leader in terms of supporting Switch,” he says; “People go, ‘Hey, you’ve got a lot more stuff [on Switch] than this publisher or that publisher. That’s what I want Bethesda to be known as. We’re guys who will take some risks.”
That approach is certainly clear from Fallout 76 itself. Choosing to develop a multiplayer spin-off of a single-player title in this fashion is a major deviation from the norm. Hines didn’t give a precise reason for why the game won’t be coming to the Switch. File size is quite possibly an issue; Elder Scrolls: Online is over 70 GB and is too large for the Switch to handle. However, Hines teased that “the next Wolfenstein” game will come to the Switch.