Image and Form explain why SteamWorld Heist is launching on 3DS first, tease next game

A portion of a Nintendo Life interview with Image and Form...

NL: It's been announced that SteamWorld Heist will come to the 3DS first. Can you give us a brief history of how you came to this decision?

IF: We thought about it long and hard... no, it was actually quite easy! At one point we discussed going to PC/Mac/Linux first, but please see the next question for the main reasons behind the decision to go with the 3DS first. SteamWorld Heist will come to 3DS first, and then to all other current-gen platforms. The order among them is yet to be determined. It could be important to mention that we haven't made any deals - we've decided to let the release schedule rest on our own choices.

What are the biggest factors for you when making a choice like this, and what would you say is the most notable reason for choosing 3DS as the launch platform?

First, it's a matter of conscience. It dates back to August 2013, when we first released SteamWorld Dig on Nintendo 3DS and raced to the #1 eShop spots in America, Europe and Australia. In a fit of emotion I couldn't keep my trap shut and in some forum ecstatically announced that our next game would MOST DEFINITELY come to the 3DS first.

Dig was our first self-published game that received major attention, and as a result I was speaking to media the whole time. Some of the other guys in the office, cautious of my transformation from mediocre programmer and wallet to self-proclaimed media rock star, suggested early that I shouldn't be over-promising, that those sneaky journalists would try to make me divulge things the team would have to deal with later. I promised them I wouldn't promise too much, and then promptly promised that our next release would hit the 3DS first. At the time I shrugged it off and thought that the intense love we were getting from the 3DS community might wane, and that nobody would remember my "3DS first!" outburst long after the fact.

But then I saw a discussion on NeoGAF around six months ago where people were discussing SteamWorld Heist, and someone mentioned that "the devs have promised that it'll come to the 3DS first." The Internet has a long memory!

Second, it's a matter of convenience and production schedule. We're familiar with 3DS development, and we decided early that we would anyway have to develop specifically with the 3DS in mind, since it's so different from the other platforms. In other words, it's no mere port - SteamWorld Heist is built for the 3DS from the ground up. That obviously doesn't mean it'll be less of an experience on other platforms later, but it really makes good use of the two screens, and we've got performance issues sorted out right off the bat.

And third, I'm proud to say it's a matter of loyalty. We have been surprised to see how steady the sales of the 3DS version of SteamWorld Dig have been. In the end, we're happy to give something to a community that's very supportive, and perhaps doesn't see too many third-party "first releases".

NL: Moving onto the game in more general terms, is the final structure and open-ended nature of the campaign now nearing completion? How far have you progressed in completing the game's world (or universe)?

IF: That's a very interesting way of posing the question. How far "towards the end" of SteamWorld this game is remains to be seen. We have quite a few ideas for games that come "after" SteamWorld Heist, chronologically.

When George Lucas announced parts 1-3 of Star Wars, it sounded pretty strange - but apparently this was something that he'd had in mind from the start, being quite frank about the original movie trilogy being parts 4-6. I specifically remember seeing "Episode V" and wondering about it when I first saw The Empire Strikes Back. Where were episodes 1-3?

I'm not saying that we're anything like George Lucas! But on a grand scale Star Wars legitimised producing prequels and sequels out of order. The next game we'll make in the SteamWorld series is probably going to take place before SteamWorld Heist. Since we feel that we can use SteamWorld as an umbrella universe that can contain any kind of game genre, we feel that progressing the story in order is not that important. In the end, you'll have the whole picture. Calling up another movie reference here, Memento does it all backwards, and is no less interesting for it.