Darksiders 2 dev: Wii U hardware "on par" with current gen
Won't do anything to "up-rez" the game on Nintendo's console.
The Wii U hardware is "on par" with the current generation of consoles, one of the developers behind Wii U launch title Darksiders 2 has said.
The game's developer, Vigil, said Darksiders 2 on Wii U will be "pretty much the same" as the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, and confirmed it won't do anything to "up-rez" it for Nintendo's next console.
Instead, the Wii U version will stand out because of the way it makes use of the console's touch screen controller, game director Marvin Donald told GameReactor.
"We have limitations based on Nintendo's progress," he said. "But, the only problem that's been for us is not having an actual release date. But once we know when Nintendo has committed to a firm date, we will be able to commit to a date for Darksiders 2, but we're planning on it being a launch title, and so far everything's been smooth sailing.
"We got the game running on their hardware pretty quickly, and the controller's been great to work with. Now it's just down to deciding what we really want to do to make it a unique experience on the Wii U; taking advantage of the extra screen and the touch capability and all that. So, we'll have a few new features for sure, but I think visually, for the most part, it'll be pretty much the same.
"So far the hardware's been on par with what we have with the current generations. Based on what I understand, the resolution and textures and polycounts and all that stuff, we're not going to being doing anything to up-rez the game, but we'll take advantage of the controller for sure."
Nintendo has so far remained tight-lipped on the tech specs of its first high definition console, instead promising to fully unveil the final design at E3 in June before launch in time for Christmas 2012.
In July last year Donald told Eurogamer Vigil spent five weeks in the run up to E3 2011 creating a working version of the action adventure game on Wii U. Then, he said the Wii U had "plenty of horsepower", "so we're not going to have to make any visual concessions at all".
At that time developers were working off of second generation Wii U dev kits - early versions of the console. Donald told us "if the Wii U turns out to be this ridiculously powerful machine, we will probably make changes to our budget and scope to take advantage of that". His latest comments suggest this has not happened.