So, Geralt’s rolling mission to play Gwent throughout the land is coming to the Switch. That’s a huge achievement in and of itself, but if you’re playing in handheld, here’s a heads up for what you’re in for.
The official Twitter account confirmed that the open-world RPG, which is shipping with all the post-launch story and cosmetic DLC, would run at a maximum resolution of 720p when running in docked mode. That’s on par with other first-person shooters and graphically intensive games that have made the jump to the Switch (DOOM, Wolfenstein 2 comes to mind).
When playing in handheld, the resolution would drop down to 540p. Dynamic resolution would be enabled throughout, so it’s likely — as seen in DOOM — that some images and battles would see the resolution drop further. DOOM ran closer to 600p most of the time in docked mode, and it’d be likely that certain effects and buffers would be rendered at vastly lower resolutions to maintain performance in intensive scenes.
540p handheld, 720p, with dynamic resolution enabled, on screen.
— The Witcher (@witchergame) June 11, 2019
In the original trailer, you can already see some evidence of this. In the initial scenes where the crow lands on the hanging men, there’s very little detail, texture and no shadows on the hanging bodies, the crow, or their hooded masks. In the wider shot where the tree and hanged men are at distance, there’s little to no anti-aliasing (notice the shimmer on the bodies as they sway). The shot of Geralt on Roach also seems like it’ll be telling — Geralt’s hair looks flat and almost like a single, full texture, and there’s noticeable artifacting around Roach.
None of this is a major criticism — the fact that Witcher 3 even runs on the Switch is nothing short of remarkable, when you consider the game’s hardware requirements versus the Switch’s capabilities in handheld or docked mode. I doubt CDR would release the game if it was in a unplayable state, but it’s also good to know what to expect going in.
The studio also published more screenshots captured from the Switch earlier this morning.
Will you give The Witcher 3 another go on the Switch?
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