EA says FIFA 18 on Switch isn’t running on Frostbite because it would look downgraded

EA is known for having games with some very impressive visuals. Look at Battlefield, Madden, Mirrors Edge Catalyst, and of course, FIFA. These games are really beautiful and they all have one thing in common: the Frostbite engine. Madden and FIFA only recently adopted the engine to their games but they look and perform better for it.

When EA announced they'd be supporting Nintendo Switch earlier this year, they announced that they'd put out one game and it would be FIFA 18. The only thing is, it's not really the PS4/Xbox One versions of FIFA 18. It's a custom built version of the game that won't be running on Frostbite and it'll be missing some features like the campaign mode. The game will run on a version of the IGNITE engine which previously powered the Xbox One/PS4 versions of EA's sports games prior to switching to Frostbite last year.

EA states that they did this intentionally. They didn't want to spend time bringing the Frostbite engine to the Switch only so they could water it down and get it running on the portable/console hybrid. It won't just be some lower quality version that people scoff at, rather it'll be a full FIFA game that players are normally used to getting except it just won't include the narrative.

“As much as we would have wanted to (use Frostbite) you can’t without making the whole engine work. We intentionally chose to do a custom engine because we felt that rather and try and get Frostbite running and end up having to downsize things and making it just a smaller, lower-quality version of the PS4 and Xbox One versions, we wanted this to be a FIFA that stands on its own two feet. We want people to recognize it and play it for what it is rather than saying, hey, you’re getting a sh***y, second-rate game. This is a full FIFA that players will enjoy.”EA's  Andrei Lazarescu told Dream Team Gaming.

“If you put the two together you won’t recognize them. When you dock it (and connect to the TV), it’s 1080p and 60 frames per second – Gen 3 (PS3 / Xbox 360) never run on this. We’re also using physics based rendering, another thing that Gen 3 did not have. We’re even putting ICONS in Ultimate Team – Gen 3 won’t have these either.”

At least it sounds like they're putting some effort and thought into it rather than throwing together something that feels not as well thought out. Will you be getting FIFA 18 on Nintendo Switch? Let us know in the comments below.

FIFA 18 is out on September 29th, 2017 on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Switch, and PC.