Bad And Broken Switch Ports

The Nintendo Switch is effectively an Android tablet from 2016 that plugs into a TV and plays Mario. So expecting big AAA games built for consoles like the Xbox Series X to work on the Switch seems silly. Yet, this year saw a host of big games cut down and shoved onto the Switch with…mixed results.

For example, Mortal Kombat 1 on the Switch is fascinating. The game was developed for current-gen consoles, skipping the older PS4 and Xbox One machines. Yet, WB Games also had a studio port it to the Switch. It didn’t go well, with the Switch version of the gory fighter running poorly and looking pretty rough.

The port of Hogwarts Legacy on Switch was better, for sure, than MK1, but it still showed the limitations of bringing big games from newer consoles to Nintendo’s hybrid device. In the other versions of Hogwarts Legacy, the game offers a fully open world. In the Switch port, areas are separated by long loading screens and some parts of the world have been closed off entirely to grasp back as many frames as possible.

Then there’s the Arkham Knight Switch port, which was recently released in a damn near unplayable state, with performance tanking into slideshow territory when driving the game’s Batmobile.

While it’s interesting to see these and other games get ported to Switch—watching what gets cut and what stays—it’s becoming very clear in 2023 that the Switch isn’t capable of running new games, and these ports are often the worst way to play them.