Two Tribes on tweaking RIVE to hit 1080p docked/720p handheld and 60fps, making good on a promise

RIVE is Two Tribes' last game ever. RIVE has been out on other platforms, but now the final release on Switch. Two Tribes' Collin van Ginkel sat down with Nintendo Life to discuss some of the technical specs, as well as the feeling of releasing their last game.

NL: Did you hit the target of native 720p portable and 1080p docked, or was a little trickery needed with the resolution?

CVG: Yes we did, it looks super clean on both an HDTV or the Switch’s built-in screen. We didn’t consider anything lower than full resolution to be honest, same goes for the 60fps refresh.

Our main challenge was with the CPU, which is harder to optimise than the graphics processor (GPU). It’s easier to cut a few visual features than it is to cut code, since that influences the game experience directly.

NL: With this being the last new Two Tribes game, will the Switch release be particularly emotional for you?

CVG: Like I said at the start of the interview, we feel like we’re making good on a promise. RIVE was always supposed to be in the hands of Nintendo gamers, so we are very pleased to be able to finally release it. We’ve spent as much time as we needed to make RIVE the perfect goodbye present to Nintendo gamers, now it’s up them to tell us if they thought it was worth the wait!