Przemek Baran & Patryk Pustuł of RedDeer.Games — Interview Series

If you happened to miss out on the initial release of Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron, then you’re in luck. As it turns out, both Phosphor Game Studios and RedDeer.Games have made the decision to port the game over to Nintendo Switch, thus allowing fledgling pilots and aviation gurus to finally take to the skies and experience the outlandish nature of the Ork-centric universe from a handheld perspective. In other words, if you missed out on the opportunity to the fall asleep to the words “TO WAAAGH!” these past several months, then you’re about to be greeted with a few restless nights. Huzzah!

For the sake of shedding a little more light on Dakka Squadron and its recent launch on Switch, we caught up with RedDeer.Games’ Przemek Baran and Patryk Pustuł to discuss their involvement with the franchise, as well as their plans for the future.

Before we delve into Warhammer 40,000, tell us a bit about your background in the gaming industry. What brought the two of you to this position?

Przemek: For around 10 years, I had worked in logistics and interacted with game dev exclusively via playing games. A few years ago, as I was learning macros in MS Excel I was mesmerized by programming. Since I started playing games at a young age, I naturally drifted towards learning Unreal Engine 4. After building up a portfolio and a few tasks—test games, I finally found myself in RedDeer.Games, where I both port titles and make them from scratch.

Patryk: I don’t have much to tell about my background in Game Dev – this is my first job in the industry. I started working as a junior unity developer in 2021. Simultaneously, I mainly took care of porting games onto the Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles.

Let’s talk about Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron. What is it, and what can newcomers to the game expect to find?

Przemek: Orks! Voice acting, their specific language, and character design allow the players to feel the vibe of these simple but deadly monsters. On top of that, the game is very dynamic, a lot is happening on the screen at once, and from all the airborne maneuvers you can get dizzy. The graphics aren’t incredible, which is normal for handheld ports, but our priority was the action. We did our best to squeeze everything we could out of the Nintendo Switch and show you the world of Orks.

Patryk: It’s a well-made action game in the world of Warhammer 40,000, in which we can take the seat of a true pilot veteran and help our clan during wartime. There are lots of customization options in the game, and we’re counting on the fact that everyone finds something for themselves. We did the best we could to make the game’s graphics as nice as possible, fully aware that the Nintendo Switch cannot show the original visuals.

And would you say that it’s an easy game to learn? Could, say, an inexperienced gamer boot it up and get involved, or is it better suited for a series die-hard?

Przemek: Let’s be real, 40k Dakka Squadron is not a game made for new players. We have to steer an aircraft in tight areas, aim, and dodge enemy planes all at once. This is a game aimed at those who don’t give up after falling down once, but dust off their ork armor and run towards their backup plane. 

Patryk: This is a game for anyone who wants to sink into this world and who might also be a fan of planes and absolute destruction. When it comes to the controls as well as the amount of stuff shown on screen, the game can be a bit tough. The player needs to focus on one objective, which might be quite a challenge for an inexperienced gamer.

Warhammer is an enormous franchise to work with, too. What was it like to slip into? Was it an easy fit, or were there any complications?

Przemek: Working with a big franchise can put pressure on us because plenty of fans are waiting for another high-quality portrayal of their favorite world. You could say that “With a great franchise comes great responsibility”, we’re hoping that the technical limits won’t be too noticeable and that fans will enjoy the gameplay.

Patryk: Working with a franchise like Warhammer was a big opportunity for us, and we were pleased that Phosphor Studios agreed to work with us.

Tell us about the process of porting the game over to Nintendo Switch. How did you find it emulating its core features?

Patryk: It was quite a hard process; optimizing every map, every menu, visual effects and lights, and putting the UI and controls on joy cons. Even though I was present during the project and looking after the porting process, I think Przemek has way more to say about this, as he was the one who worked on the project every day and familiarized himself with both code and mechanics.

Przemek: Technology is developing really fast, so porting a project that was released 3 years ago is closely tied with downgrading and using archived software for compatibility’s sake. Many global aspects of the game, namely texture resolution, particle effects, and lighting had to be modified on a case-to-case basis, sometimes even per level, to achieve the best quality without sacrificing the health of a console from 2017. The controls in 40k Dakka Squadron are quite complex, sometimes we struggled with translating all of them in the most optimal way.

Do you have any prospects for Dakka Squadron? More importantly, are there any important dates that we can jot down in our calendars?

Patryk: Currently, we’re working on a patch that makes the graphics prettier and removes the cursor from the UI. We’re hoping that it will be available next week and will please the Warhammer fans. We can’t share any more plans, but we will be introducing changes to the game depending on players’ feedback.

Przemek: Just like Patryk mentioned, the patch that will bump up the quality of the game itself and enforce the switch standard of interface quality, will soon be available.

Warhammer 40,000 set aside for a moment — do you guys have any other projects in the pipeline? If so, would you kindly share a few details?

Przemek: Because I specialize in Unreal Engine and most of the games made in it are AA games I can say that we’ll release a few more big titles onto the Switch eShop 🙂

Patryk; We can’t share much, but we are currently working on games like DROS and I See Red. In the near future we will share these and more projects with players, I recommend following our social media.

Any final words for our readers?

Przemek: 40k Dakka Squadron wasn’t an easy title to port on the Switch, but it was a satisfying and informative project, I hope that we will be able to present many more ambitious projects to the rest of world.

Patryk: We’re hoping that what we’ve made will be enjoyed by players, and we’re happy that we can work on such a cool project.

Thanks for your time! We’re excited to see some more of Warhammer 40,000 over the coming months!

Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron is currently available on Nintendo Switch and PC. Interested in staying up to date with the developer? If so, then be sure to check in with the team over on their official social handle here.