The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is going to stink on Nintendo Switch. At least, I think that’s what a lot of people assume. But the evidence is beginning to mount that it may not stink at all. The Switcher 3 (as the kids are calling it) is looking like one of the most impressive ports for Nintendo’s hybrid home/handheld console yet. The latest argument to back that up is Nintendo’s presentation of the game live from Gamescom in Germany where the company showed the game running in portable mode.
Developer CD Projekt Red first released The Witcher 3 in 2015, but it’s so demanding that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One both struggled with it in several spots. And the Switch is a portable device. It uses a mobile chip that is equivalent to a smartphone or tablet from a couple of years ago. The Witcher 3 should not work on Switch.
And yet, I think it’s time that we believe our eyes.
Witcher 3 Switch in handheld mode seems impossible, but here it is
In Nintendo’s Gamescom video, a CD Projekt Red employee talks about the game while a Nintendo of Europe representative plays it in handheld mode. Nintendo then streamed that gameplay to its livefeed. The results look extremely playable. Hell, it looks better than “playable.” It’s is running really well.
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One of the most impressive parts of the demonstration is when Witcher hero Geralt enters the biggest city, Novigrad. This is one of the more taxing parts of the world, and yet the dev team isn’t trying to hide it. And that’s because, again, it looks like the Switch can actually handle it.
Switcher 3 is hitting Nintendo Switch on October 15. And that’s when you’ll get a chance to see it in action for yourself.
