Big Ant’s future cricket & tennis games in development, coming to Switch

In an interview with Vooks at PAX Australia, Big Ant CEO Ross Symons revealed that future cricket and tennis games will be coming to the Nintendo Switch alongside other platforms.

Following the strong relationship Big Ant has formed with Nintendo during the development of the upcoming T20 cricket tile Big Bash Boom, Symons says they will support the Switch into the future.

Big Bash Boom

“We’re really happy with the way things have gone with Big Bash Boom, so we, for the foreseeable future, will probably add Switch to every title,” Symons said.

After clarifying this comment with Big Ant, Vooks can confirm this means that future cricket and tennis games in the vein of the recent Ashes Cricket and AO Tennis titles respectively are currently in development and that they will be coming to the Nintendo Switch.

Big Ant has a strong record of high-quality cricket games, including Don Bradman Cricket 14 and 17, in addition to Ashes Cricket, which have all seen releases on PC alongside the PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Symons previously expressed his desire to bring Ashes Cricket to Switch, but an agreement with Nintendo didn’t eventuate. Considering Big Ant are now developing for Switch in the form of Big Bash Boom, it is possible to expect plenty more cricket action on the portable platform in the future.

Alistair Cook waiting for test cricket on the Switch to play in his retirement.

AO Tennis came out on PS4 and Xbox One during the Australian Open tournament in January this year, where it received a mixed reception due to various bugs and gameplay issues. However, AO Tennis has since received many patches and free content updates to significantly improve the game, including major content updates planned through to January 2019. Vooks understands much of AO Tennis’ rocky launch can be attributed to several major development difficulties encountered during the December 2017 and January 2018 period. During these two months, Big Ant attempted to implement various improvements to the game following a successful press event but instead encountered more bugs which could not all be fixed ahead of the mid-January release. Now, with many of these issues addressed, a potential follow-up game on Switch would be a welcome addition for tennis fans looking for a portable fix.

AO Tennis

Although an official announcement is yet to be made on the upcoming cricket and tennis games, there are some indicators as to when to expect more news. Next year’s sporting calendar features the Cricket World Cup between May and July, and the Ashes series between August and September, both of which would be ideal times for any cricket-related announcements or releases. As for tennis, any potential announcements would likely coincide with one of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

Reportedly, it is intended that the Nintendo Switch version of both games will achieve feature and performance parity to other platforms, aside from the obvious graphical and resolution limitations.

In the meantime, Big Bash Boom will be smashing the Switch for six on November 29. Stay tuned for our feature article where we speak with Ross Symons about developing for Nintendo and what to expect in Big Bash Boom‘s hectic T20 cricket action.