None of us expected to hear the voice of the president of Nintendo of Europe announcing, at the end of the recent Nintendo Direct, the upcoming release of a new sci-fi TPS. The game will be published exclusively on the e-Shop of the Nintendo 3DS. A scenario that, if hypothesized just a few years ago, would have certainly left most of us incredulous. But all this happened a few weeks ago.
On January 14, at the end of the Nintendo Direct video, Satoru Shibata revealed IronFall: Invasion, a third person shooter developed by V.D.dev, coming this February.
Tell us about your story and why you chose 3DS, athypical platform for FPSes, for Ironfall.
We are a small indie team, working with the Nintendo handheld console for 20 years now. We have done games on Gameboy, Gameboy Advance (Vrally3), Nintendo DS (C.O.P. the Recruit)… So it was natural for us to continue on 3DS. We had wanted to do an action game for a long time, so once we decided to release our own game, with our own game design and franchise, we came up with IronFall: Invasion.
Are there specific source of inspiration for Ironfall Invasion?
Our first game on the Amiga was called Jim Power, and it was an action shooter. Our character in IronFall is called Jim Woper as a nod to that character. Our first fans will notice that the main character of IronFall actually has a Jet Pack on his back, like in our first game 20 years ago! He does not use it in the game, though…When we brainstormed how to bring an action game like Jim Power in a 3D environment, we thought the recent trend of cover shooters was the best adaptation possible.
Can you talk about the challenges of developing on both 3DS and New 3DS? Are there any substantial differences between the two versions?
It was easy to work on both consoles and Nintendo’s developer support teams were very helpful. We can detect on which console the game is running so we added special features. When you play on the New Nintendo 3DS, you can use the C-Stick to aim at enemies and use the ZL and ZR buttons to run and reload quickly. This is a great way to play the game, very similar to playing on a home console. People who have a Circle Pad Pro can also play with that device if they want. We actually adapted the controls accordingly. For example on the New Nintendo 3DS, shooting is automatically assigned to R because its more comfortable to use on this model. On the other hand, shooting is automatically assigned to ZR when shooting with a Circle Pad Pro. Finally, on the New 3DS, loadings are faster thanks to the hardware specs.
How is online play going to work on Ironfall Invasion (player hosting, modes, etc.)? There will be voice chat?
Sorry, we’ll give more details on the multiplayer soon 😉
We’ll have up to 6 players for local multiplayer and online multiplayer, with different modes like ‘team match’ and ‘free for all’. We also managed to keep 60fps in multiplayer.
Can you give us details about the single player story?
You’ll have to fight the Dyxides, an army of robot aliens coming from outer space with one goal: to wipe out humans, so that they can freely exploit the mineral resources from our planet.
The campaign is 11 levels long, set in outside and inside locations around the world.
Any chance of working also on Wii U in the future? Does your engine allow development on an HD home console?
The 3DS is taking all our time, it will be hard for a small studio like us to do a Wii U version.
Are you planning post launch updates and/or DLC ?
First, we need to take a few weeks of holidays after working on the game for more than 3 years. We will definitely check out Miiverse and message boards to see what players think of the current version.
Will you ever work on different platforms other than Nintendo’s?
It’s a love story between us and Nintendo’s handhelds, so as long as we are having fun, why change ?
How did you end up in the recent Nintendo Direct as the “surprise last game”? Were you contacted by Nintendo specifically for that?
Yes it was Nintendo who offered to unveil the game during Nintendo Direct. We were very excited about that. We had no idea we were the last “surprise” shown in Europe.
Did Nintendo help you during the development of the game and its promotion?
Nintendo has a great developer support team which we have known for years and they helped us already a lot with the development and promotion thanks to Nintendo Direct!
Needless to say that developers at V.D.dev take their product very seriously, just as much as they take the big N seriously. We can’t wait to get our hands on the game and try out one of the first big TPS for Nintendo 3DS.