The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG

Players: 1

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

The Witcher 3 is an Open-World Action-RPG that has garnered countless accolades since its original release in 2015 on multiple platforms. Four years later, developer CD Projekt Red shocked everyone by releasing the game on the Nintendo Switch, a platform that many assumed would never be able to handle it, and complete with all of its expansion content, no less! While some might draw comparisons to Skyrim, which has a lot of similarities to The Witcher 3 and made the jump to Switch quite smoothly, Skyrim was originally designed for the prior generation of game consoles, while The Witcher 3 has taxed even more powerful machines than the Nintendo Switch. So the question is, have CD Projekt Red and Saber Interactive, who ported the game over, managed to make a miracle here?

Er… sorta’, but mostly no.

The most miraculous thing going on here is that this game is even running on the Nintendo Switch at all, and without any cuts to the gameplay. And to be fair, many of the elements that survived the jump to the Nintendo Switch are still impressive. The environments are still massive, full of NPCs, and touting lots of varied foliage sprawled over the landscape. The water effects here are also very nice. And the character models are absolutely wonderful.

Having said that, there were clearly some massive sacrifices that had to be made here, and it’s extremely noticeable. The 1080p resolution other platforms enjoyed has been brought down to a dynamic 720p in docked mode, dropping down to as low as 960×540, while portable mode has the game running at a 960×540 dynamic resolution, which can go down as low as 810×546. The framerates are also pretty low here, running at 30FPS but dipping down to 20FPS in busier areas, with even more slowdown in cutscenes, plus the load times are noticeably longer (thanks to Digital Foundry for the numbers). The detail in environmental objects has been dropped, the texture detail is lower, and there’s tons and tons of pop-in.

The result of all of these cutbacks is that The Witcher III is clearly a game that was once stunningly beautiful… that is rendered something of an eyesore on the Switch. Out of all of the cutbacks, the drop in resolution and texture detail is what really hurts the game the most, giving it an extremely blurry look that made my eyes water to play it. The game does provide display settings you can tinker with to try to improve performance, but even these only helped so much. And the visual cutbacks aren’t quite as noticeable in portable play, but they’re still there, and still very distracting.

As I said though, the game itself remains intact here. For those unfamiliar with The Witcher 3, this is an Open-World RPG that has a lot of similarities to Skyrim, but differs in some very noteworthy ways, and one of the biggest ones is this game’s focus on story and worldbuilding. Suffice it to say, the writing, voice acting, and the love and care that have been put into making the world of The Witcher a cohesive, breathing world are absolutely beyond reproach. Every NPC you chat with has a distinct personality that fits within the world, seems to have their own take on the politics of the day, as well as their own opinion about your character, the magically-enhanced Witcher seen by many as something of a necessary evil tolerated out of a need to fight off monsters, but absolutely rejected when this need has come to an end. If you are looking for a game with a massive world to explore and an equally deep story to match, you will not find any game to match The Witcher 3.

When it comes to the gameplay, The Witcher 3 sets itself apart with its deep battle system that puts a lot of emphasis on preparing for battles, collecting alchemy components for potions, getting crafting ingredients, and properly researching supernatural enemies to know the proper tools to use. Those who prefer their swords and sorcery to be a bit more adventurous and less meticulous and detail-oriented may balk at the complexities The Witcher 3 demands of its players, but those who revel in those sort of details will absolutely love this game.

On a personal note, I personally prefer a great deal about Skyrim. I prefer its first-person perspective, with controls that I feel are a lot tighter and more responsive. I prefer the feeling of being a character of my design in the open world, going where I choose and beholden to no one. I prefer being able to steal any physical object in that game that isn’t bolted down. The level of freedom I feel playing Skyrim simply can’t be matched here. Although, again, the quality of storytelling and character invested into The Witcher 3 can’t be matched by Skyrim, so it’s a tradeoff. I keep bringing up Skyrim here because the comparisons are inevitable, so I feel I might as well just get them out of the way.

One more note about the Nintendo Switch version – this game does incorporate touch controls in handheld mode (mostly to navigate menus), which is a nice touch. However, there are no motion controls, though I can’t see how those would have improved this game much.

Look, when it comes down to it, and my own personal preferences aside, The Witcher III is a magnificent game with a massive, beautiful world, and a wonderful, well-told story… that you should get on another platform. If you only have a Nintendo Switch, or if you absolutely desire to play this game on the go, it’s serviceable, but the cuts in the graphics department are severe and painful. It may very well be an absolute marvel that this game runs at all on the Switch, but it does so at a very heavy price.

tl;dr – The Witcher III is an Open-World Action-RPG that has players exploring a massive fantasy world filled with deep, engrossing, extremely well-told story conveyed by fantastic characters, and it is absolutely amazing that the game works on the Switch at all. However, the cuts made to the graphics are severe to the point where I found them painful to look at, and while this is absolutely a must-play game, unless you don’t have another modern gaming platform or absolutely need to play this game on a handheld, you should be playing this on a system that is better-equipped to handle it.

Grade: B+

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

The Witcher 3’s release on Nintendo Switch was much like that of No Man’s Sky, in that it’s amazing that it even exists, but the game itself is severely compromised to work on Nintendo’s underpowered hardware. So perhaps it is fitting that the game’s release on Nintendo Switch 2 is similarly much like No Man’s Sky, in that not only is this an astounding port that rights the wrongs done to the game to get it to fit on Nintendo Switch, but that it does so with grace and surprising generosity, being a free update for players who own the Nintendo Switch version of the game.

To be clear, this is not a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition release, so your save will not automatically transfer over. However, if you have your game save from the Nintendo Switch version of the game, the Remastered release will read it and let you pick up right where you left off… but that transition only works one way – saves from the Nintendo Switch 2 release won’t transfer to the Nintendo Switch version of the game.

I should also note that unlike many Nintendo Switch 2 upgrades, you can get the free upgrade for this game whether you have the digital or physical release of the game, meaning an unscrupulous sort could even borrow the Nintendo Switch version of the game from a friend or library to get the Nintendo Switch 2 version for free. Like I said, this release is absurdly generous.

In addition, this version adds in a bunch of extra content and minor upgrades throughout the game like new witcher signs, rebalanced enemies, updated UI, updated skill trees, updated tutorial… basically revamping the game while keeping the core gameplay largely intact. The list is extensive and I won’t go over all of it here. Suffice it to say, this is absolutely not a mere upres of the prior versions of the game.

But what do you get in this version compared to the Nintendo Switch release? Well, for starters, this version of the game includes the Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions, and will be compatible with the announced Songs of the Past expansion once it’s released. The Nintendo Switch 2 version also now has mod support too, no less!

In addition, this game makes full use of different control options available on Nintendo Switch, with players able to pick and choose which controls to use. It brings back the touchscreen controls of the Nintendo Switch game, but adds to that optional gyroscopic aiming, optional gyroscopic gesture controls for quick use of witcher signs or consumable items, and optional dynamic Mouse Mode controls.

Also, I have to mention that this game makes excellent use of HD Rumble 2, for some nice subtle feedback when walking or riding, and a more visceral feel in combat.

Okay, but I’m sure what you really want to know is how the graphics and performance measure up. Well, there you’ll be pleased to know that where the Nintendo Switch version was like playing the game with the screen smeared with Vaseline, here you have a higher resolution and much more environmental detail, and this is absolutely one of those “night and day” differences. Playing this game on Nintendo Switch 2 after playing the Nintendo Switch version is almost like playing a whole new game.

As far as the actual specs, the Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Witcher 3 runs between 30FPS and 40FPS framerates, with a 1080p resolution in docked mode and 720p resolution in handheld mode – still not on par with other modern platforms, but much closer to them and far more playable than what we got on the original Nintendo Switch.

The one area here that isn’t an across-the-board improvement is the loading times – the Nintendo Switch version of the game took 43 seconds to load to the title screen and an additional 28 seconds to load a game save, while the Nintendo Switch 2 version took 53 seconds and 22 seconds, meaning on balance when you fire up the game on Nintendo Switch 2 it will take you a whole 4 seconds longer to get started. Trust me, that four seconds is absolutely worth it.

I’ve said before, I prefer Skyrim to The Witcher 3, and that remains true. But where previously I could say that the former is far more playable if you’re playing it on a Nintendo platform, that is no longer the case. The Witcher 3 – Remastered is not only a great redemption for the game on Nintendo platforms, but one of the best upgrades for any game going from Nintendo Switch to Nintendo Switch 2. And to get that upgrade for free… wow. Just wow. Earlier, I compared this game to No Man’s Sky when talking about the quality and generosity of this upgrade, but it may very well surpass that game as the best Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade. If you enjoy Open-World Action-RPGs, this game is not to be missed, and I think we all owe the folks at CD Projekt Red thanks for making it so very easy to get our hands on it.

tl;dr – The Witcher III is an Open-World Action-RPG that has players exploring a massive fantasy world filled with deep, engrossing, extremely well-told story conveyed by fantastic characters. This new release on Nintendo Switch 2 is a massive upgrade over the Nintendo Switch version, not only bringing the graphics and performance up to something that’s actually decent by today’s standards, but adding in a ton of new content and features, plus making use of many of the Nintendo Switch 2’s unique capabilities… all in an upgrade that’s free if you own the Nintendo Switch version of the game. Do not miss this.

Grade: A

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