Panic Button on supporting Switch, porting DOOM, their 8-step process, taking on challenging ports, and more

Panic Button has been working on games since the Wii era, but they've really made a name for themselves on the Switch. If you want a team that can work technical wonders on the Switch, there's no one better. In an interview with Engadget, Panic Button's Michael Traub spills the beans on a number of different Switch-related topics. Check out a summary of the most interesting tidbits below.

On choosing to support Switch after the Wii U's failure

"At the time, when we were looking at the Nintendo Switch it was, 'Well, this could either really go well or it could really go bad.' It was difficult to tell, but we saw the potential in it. We saw that it had a little bit more muscle concealed behind its small exterior than most people would suspect."

On porting DOOM

"To find ourselves working in that space, on that title, on that IP, was pretty impressive, and pretty intense, but we worked very hard not to let ourselves get psyched out by that. It was, 'Keep your eye on the ball, work on the tech.' Every time we could save a millisecond, every bit we could push, pushed us a little closer to, I don't want to say glory, but pushed us closer to our objective of making our own contribution to the franchise."

The team's eight-stage process of completing Switch ports

- "evaluation phase"
- "evaluation drop" that explores the game's source code
- deeper "technical due diligence" phase
- "first light" that aims to create the first on-screen action of the port
- "first playable"
- feature parity
- pre-submission
- submission

On setting out to tackle tough projects

"What we're not doing is picking the ones that make us go, 'That's easy, we know we can knock that out of the park.' We're actually picking the ones that make us go, "All right, that's hard, but we're pretty sure we can do it.'"

On Wolfenstein: Youngblood and DOOM Eternal

"They are easily among the most challenging projects that we've worked on."