Playdead has confirmed that the PlayStation Vita version of Limbo is a straight port and will not take advantage of the handheld’s unique touchscreen functionality.
Speaking to Eurogamer, studio head Dino Patti said that PS Vita’s touch controls wouldn’t have suited the critically-acclaimed adventure game.
"[The Vita port] cost us more than the other ports because we put a lot of effort into it," said Patti.
"When we ported to PC we put a lot of effort into making the keyboard work. It wasn’t straight. It took months and months of testing and trying out. We did a lot of QA around keyboard controls.
"It’s the same with the Vita. It needs to be perfect for that screen. There are some things that are different for when the screen is smaller we do to make it work better.
"We’re not using any touch. We didn’t feel it would suit Limbo at all. It would feel like a patch if we did it. And we really like the original experience. The Vita allows you to have the original experience.”
Patti went on to say that a lot of rethinking on the studio’s part would be required in order to accommodate touch controls. As such, the team would be better off just making a brand new game instead.
"It would require a lot from us to rethink the game. We would probably make another game if we were going to do that. Vita was a no-brainer because we could keep the same experience. It has all of these great features, but we didn’t have to use them."
"We’re always interested in expanding our market," he said. "It’s been really successful for us before. Whenever we do a new port, we use a lot of time and effort on it. At one point it always seems like we spend too much time on a port. But when you launch it you will always break even pretty fast. We’re happy about that,” he continued.
"It keeps us running the company and doing more games."
Limbo for PS Vita has yet to attract a firm release date. Stay tuned.