Nintendo Switch continues to delight and surprise with the quality of its current generation console ports – but the arrival of a conversion of The Witcher 3 is something else. Developed by Saber Interactive in association with CD Projekt Red, the ambition here is to deliver the entire Witcher 3 experience, complete with all DLC.
Compromises are inevitable, of course, but what sets this game apart is just how taxing it is on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, while the PC version challenges CPU, GPU and even memory bandwidth. As we’ve discovered in the past with our own tests, getting this game running well on mobile-level power is a daunting proposition – but having gone hands on with the Switch game, the end results are undeniably impressive.
A couple of weeks ago, press were invited to Nintendo’s UK headquarters to sample the game running exclusively in handheld mode, and to talk with The Witcher 3 senior producer Piotr Chrzanowski about the process of bringing the game to Nintendo’s console hybrid. What we get to experience was the game running in docked mode – though we were supplied with seven to eight minutes of direct feed capture after the fact.
Comparing PS4 with the docked Switch – as we’ve done in a zoomer gallery on this page – shows the stark challenges the developers faced in downsizing the game, but it’s the portable experience that sets this conversion apart. CDPR were eager to show us as much of the game as possible – to the point where the preview code we sampled even included save points that took us directly to some of the stress points we’ve used to assess the PS4 and Xbox One versions in the past, including Novigrad and the infamous Crookback bog. It’s almost as if they knew we were coming! So, just how well is the Switch version shaping up?
First things first – let’s consider the basic limitations Saber and CDPR had to work with. A PS4 Slim typically uses about 80 watts of power in delivering challenging games like The Witcher 3. Meanwhile, the new Switch processor (likely based on the same 16nmFF production process as the Slim) tops out at around eight watts in docked mode. In short, that’s one tenth of the power – but it’s fair to say you’re not getting one tenth of the experience. Yes, resolution is the primary compromise. PS4’s 1080p output becomes a dynamic 540p-720p in docked mode, and lower still in handheld play.