The relationship between Thunder Lotus goes back to the studio’s first game, Jotun, which actually released on Wii U before any other console. Since then, they brought Jotun: Valhalla Edition over to Nintendo Switch earlier this year and will be releasing Sundered: Eldritch Edition on the hybrid console tomorrow as well.
As the indie developer has worked with Nintendo over the past couple years, DualShockers decided to ask Thunder Lotus about its relationship with Nintendo as well as how they’ve evolved in relation to indies since Jotun’s initial Wii U release in 2015.
According to Marketing and Communications Specialist Rodrigue Duperron, Nintendo has always been quite friendly towards the studio. While Thunder Lotus is unaware of any “shifting corporate priorities” with Nintendo, Rodrigue made it clear that they content managers that Thunder Lotus has worked with have always been great to them:
“As far as our direct contacts with Nintendo go, the specific people we’ve had the pleasure of dealing with since 2015 have always been enthusiastic about working with us and indies in general. We can’t speak to their shifting corporate priorities in that regard, but their content managers have a job to do, and in our experience, never made us feel anything less than valued partners.”
The conversation then shifted to the Nintendo Switch eShop, which many are hailing as a haven, albeit a crowded one, for indie developers. DualShockers asked Thunder Lotus if they believed this to be true and while they did compliment the storefront, they pointed out how important visibility and marketing is, especially now that the eShop has gotten so crowded:
“It certainly has been in our experience, but the market is evolving rapidly. We don’t believe any system or eShop can be taken for granted anymore, as far as release profitability is concerned. There’s no shortage of great games in general – and great indie games in particular – on any storefront at this point. So if a dev or publisher’s marketing plan is one point: “Release on Nintendo eShop, stat.”, that’s risky, to say the least.”
You should keep an eye out for the full DualShockers interview with Thunder Lotus about Sundered: Eldritch Edition as it goes live tomorrow. Sundered: Eldritch Edition will launch for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on December 21; meanwhile, the PC and PS4 versions of the game will receive the Magnate of the Gong update which includes all the same new content tomorrow as well.
The post Sundered: Eldritch Edition Developer Thunder Lotus Discusses Relationship with Nintendo by Tomas Franzese appeared first on DualShockers.