10 INSULTING Nintendo Switch Games
Nintendo Switch owners really do get a raw deal sometimes.
Nintendo Switch continues to prove the naysayers wrong. A great sales success, the ageing system demonstrates that the Wii U wasn’t the harbinger of doom for the company that it could have been.
Indeed, the Switch’s fortunes are much improved from those of its predecessor. Not only have people actually bought it, for one, but it enjoys some excellent support from third-party developers, and its handheld/home console functionality is demonstrably much more than a gimmick.
Nonetheless, Switch does suffer from one of the most unfortunate characteristics of a Nintendo console:
Quite the gulf between its specs and those of rival systems.
This hasn’t always meant that Switch-only gamers have had to miss out on notable cross-platform releases (surprisingly ports such as the recent jump of Borderlands 3 continue to attest to that), but technical differences have generally meant the versions that reach the Switch are... compromised.
There have certainly been some fantastic and almost miraculous ports for the system, with the likes of Doom, Alien: Isolation and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt arriving in rather impressive style. The Nintendo Switch editions of a lot of other titles, however, haven’t fared nearly so well. Here are some of the system’s most questionable ports of all.
10. Ark: Survival Evolved
With the seemingly timeless popular culture appeal of dinosaurs, Ark: Survival Evolved was a winning concept for many from the very beginning. A survival title that sees the player hunting, domesticating, or running in terror away from prehistoric titans? What’s not to like?
Well, the initial Nintendo Switch port, that’s what. Studio Wildcard crafted something truly intriguing here, and while the game isn’t perfect on any platform (no title is), the Switch port wasn’t just “acceptable if you only have a Nintendo Switch.” It was almost literally non-functional, with awful textures and resolution and very lengthy loading times.
Late in 2022, the developers introduced the system’s Ultimate Survivor Edition of the game, which went a very long way indeed to fixing these shortcomings.
Technically, the title is vastly improved, though performance is still imperfect. Sadly, though, the game’s reputation on the system remains tainted by the unfortunate condition it was in when it first made the leap to Nintendo’s system in November 2018.