How do you build a durable cross-platform production capability at a game studio?

Building durable cross-platform capability requires four elements: establishing platform holder relationships 5-6 months before launch dates; strategically diversifying the team to include console, PC, and mobile expertise; documenting every submission cycle in living runbooks so institutional knowledge outlasts individual team members; and treating each platform as a first-class release rather than a port. Once built, this capability compounds: the next title starts from infrastructure that took two years to earn.

What team structure supports cross-platform game production?

Cross-platform production requires deliberately building beyond your current platform expertise. Hiring console veterans with certification knowledge, PC developers with storefront and community experience, and retaining existing mobile expertise creates a team culture where platform instincts inform each other. The goal is not just filling skill gaps but building a team capable of optimizing for platforms it hasn't shipped on yet.

Why is documentation important in game production?

Documentation is a production asset, not administrative overhead. In cross-platform production, each submission cycle surfaces requirements, quirks, and edge cases that will recur on future launches. Studios that write this down in living runbooks build institutional knowledge that scales beyond individual team members. Studios that don't keep relearning the same lessons. At the scale of 15+ SKUs across multiple regions, institutional memory is a production dependency.

What does it mean to ship a game with full crossplay across all platforms?

Full crossplay means players on any supported platform can play together in the same session regardless of where they purchased the game. For TMNT: Splintered Fate, this means a PS5 player can join a session with someone on Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, or iOS without friction. Achieving this requires treating crossplay as a production commitment made at the start of cross-platform expansion, not a feature added after the fact, and building it into the engine architecture rather than bolting it on.

Building a Cross-Platform Capability

Building a Cross-Platform Capability: Lessons from Shipping TMNT on 10+ Platforms

By Craig Wells, Vice President of Operations, Super Evil Megacorp

Between July 2024 and February 2026, our team at Super Evil Megacorp shipped TMNT: Splintered Fate across 15+ SKUs spanning console, PC, and handheld (Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, and more) while simultaneously running live operations on Apple Arcade and shipping three DLC releases. The journey required building expertise in platform-specific submission timelines, player expectations, and certification processes across every major gaming ecosystem. What I want to focus on here is what that journey built: the team, the infrastructure, and the capability that makes shipping on ten-plus platforms simultaneously a realistic starting point for what comes next.

What It Takes to Ship on 10+ Platforms

Building platform relationships early.

Cross-platform production starts before you write a single line of platform code. For each new platform we targeted, I was setting up developer accounts, navigating legal agreements, configuring vendor profiles and banking information, and securing devkit access 5-6 months before our planned launch date. That meant while we were still shipping on Switch, we were already laying the groundwork for PC. While we were finishing PC, we were already inside Xbox’s developer ecosystem. The overlap wasn’t accidental. It was the only way to maintain the schedule we’d committed to. Planning for the next platform while executing the current one is what keeps a multi-platform roadmap from compressing into a series of crises.

Strategic team building.

When you’ve been mobile-first for years, it’s easy to keep hiring from the same pool. Going cross-platform required deliberately diversifying our expertise. We hired console veterans with deep certification knowledge. We brought in PC developers with community building instincts and storefront experience. We retained our mobile expertise so we didn’t lose the core competency the game was built on. The goal wasn’t just filling skill gaps. It was building a team culture eager to optimize for new platforms, where a console developer’s instincts and a mobile developer’s instincts could inform each other.

Leveraging what you know, then building past it.

Expanding to console and PC was always part of the vision – the question was sequencing it strategically. We were deliberate about the order: Switch first (closest to mobile performance specs), then PC (largest overall market), then PlayStation (larger console market share), then Xbox. Each platform informed the next. But the goal was never to stay in phased rollout mode indefinitely – it was to build the infrastructure and institutional knowledge that makes phased rollouts unnecessary. Because TMNT:SF runs on our own engine, each new platform we targeted became another build target rather than a separate porting effort. That investment compounds. The next title we take cross-platform starts from a position we had to earn over two years.

Documentation as a production asset.

Every submission cycle taught us something. The difference between studios that learn and studios that keep relearning the same lessons is whether they write it down. We built dedicated runbooks for our most complex submission processes, living documents that get updated with every launch cycle. When requirements change, when a new platform surfaces an undocumented quirk, when a regional submission process shifts, the knowledge lives in the runbook rather than in one person’s head. At the scale of 15+ SKUs across multiple regions, institutional memory isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a production dependency.

Maintaining quality across expansion.

The proof that a cross-platform production process is working isn’t whether you shipped. It’s whether quality held. TMNT:SF maintained strong critical reception across every platform we launched on: a 4.7 rating from over 35,000 reviews on the Apple App Store, Very Positive on Steam, and positive Metacritic scores on both PC and PS5. The game earned award nominations across different platform launches, not just at the beginning. That consistency didn’t happen by accident. We treated each platform as a first-class release rather than an afterthought. The EVIL Engine gave us a technical foundation that didn’t degrade with each new build target. And full crossplay across every platform we ship on (Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Apple Arcade) is the clearest expression of that commitment. Anyone can play with anyone, regardless of where they bought the game.

What the Journey Built

Two years ago, we were a mobile-first studio asking whether we could expand to console and PC without breaking what made the game work on Apple Arcade. By late 2025, we had our answer.

TMNT: Splintered Fate now runs full crossplay across every platform we ship on: Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Apple Arcade. A player on PS5 can drop into a session with someone on Steam Deck or iOS without friction. That wasn’t a feature we bolted on. It was a production commitment we made at the start and executed against through every platform launch.

The deeper capability came from the engine work. Because we build on our own technology, each new platform we targeted is effectively another build target. The certification process, the storefront setup, the regional submissions: those still require rigor and planning. But the fundamental question, can we build for this platform, has a standing answer: yes, and without starting over each time.

What that means in practice is that the next title we take cross-platform doesn’t have to retrace this journey. The infrastructure exists. The institutional knowledge is documented. The relationships with platform holders are established. A simultaneous launch across ten-plus platforms, high-end console and low-end mobile in the same window, is now a realistic starting point, not an aspirational endpoint.

Cross-platform production at this scale is hard. But it’s learnable, and once you’ve learned it, it compounds. That’s what two years of shipping looks like.

For a deeper look at the platform-specific challenges we navigated, see the companion piece: Cross-Platform Production: What Nobody Tells You About Shipping on 10+ Platforms

Craig Wells, Vice President of Operations, Super Evil Megacorp