Bayonetta Origins Director Empathises With Paper Mario Dev, Suggests Reasons For 30FPS

We are still a little way off the release of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on Switch on 23rd May, but thanks to last week’s hands-on previews, we now have confirmation of the game’s frame rate. Nintendo’s latest remake will run at 30FPS (down from 60FPS on the GameCube original), but this is not a decision that the developers will have made lightly, suggests Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon director, Abebe Tinari (thanks, My Nintendo News).

The director recently took to Twitter to state that they “can empathise” with the Paper Mario devs, drawing from their personal experience on Bayonetta Origins to explain why the game might not run at the higher frame rate that many were expecting.

“The most difficult part of game dev is making choices about what to prioritize,” Tinari emphasised in a Twitter thread where they shared insights into a game’s processing costs and how even the most simple of visuals or mechanics can carry a weight of its own. “I promise you, it was not a decision made lightly or out of ‘laziness’.”

It’s an interesting read, particularly given how easy it is to jump to conclusions about these sorts of things. We have attached the complete thread below so that you can check out Tinari’s full thoughts on the situation and their suggested reasoning for why it might have come about.

Of course, this is just one person’s opinion and is by no means the definitive reason for Paper Mario’s 30FPS frame rate, but it’s always good to hear the insights of a professional, nonetheless.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door unfolds on Switch next month. For a reminder of our thoughts on the remake so far, you can find our hands-on preview below.