Hours after Nintendo’s secretive Switch Online playtest went live, the massively multiplayer online game was streamed on YouTube and Twitch. Unsurprisingly, Nintendo has been quick in issuing Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices for anything that’s put up in defiance of its terms and conditions, which request players don’t “discuss or disclose content from either the Nintendo Switch Online: Playtest Program test software or website.”
You might have guessed this would happen after details from the playtest’s website were published immediately after it opened up. A lot of those leaked details have since been removed by DMCA requests, too. But as for Thursday’s leaks, the streams are getting taken down quickly after they pop up. You can still find clips from the playtest on social media and in forums, however. And, if you know where to look, find someone streaming it on Discord.
Nintendo announced its playtest earlier in October, opening up the experience to 10,000 people with Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack memberships, which is required to participate. The secretive event spawned a ton of intrigue: Nintendo has released no public details on it. Everything shared has been from leaks. It’s an unconventional way for a company like Nintendo to test out a project; there’s so much hype around everything the company does, and it was all but guaranteed that someone would post about the playtest publicly. It’s reminiscent of a similar moment with Valve’s new shooter Deadlock, which was quietly opened up for playtests on Steam with an “early development build.” Valve asked invited players to not share anything from the game — but required no contracts to be signed. It was quickly shared online.
The gist of Nintendo’s game is that players are developing a planet by building in their own personal zones, denoted by beacons that light up small areas. Players can build, move things, and edit the world within their own zone. There seems to be a lot of building upwards to expand the zone. Right now, it looks a lot like Minecraft, with a voxel, block-based art style. It’s unclear how the game will look when it’s officially revealed or released. Players can also hang out in a social area and create user-generated content, though there hasn’t been as much of that shown online.
