Skyrim is not the only Bethesda game coming to the Nintendo Switch. During Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct the new Doom, which released on PC, PS4 and Xbox One last year, and the upcoming Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus were both announced for Nintendo’s hybrid console. As for release dates, Doom is scheduled to arrive sometime this holiday season while Wolfenstein II comes out later next year.
This news, along with Rockstar’s L.A. Noire coming to the Switch, bodes very well for Nintendo and big third-parties, an area of support that has not been great for Nintendo in the past.
Optimism for the Nintendo Switch and third-party support came early this year when Shinya Takahashi, Director and Managing Executive Officer at Nintendo, stated that the Switch would be easier to make games for than previous hardware. In the same call with investors, Miyamoto stated that the Switch also supported current game engines like Unreal and Unity. Now when you figure in that the Switch is selling like hotcakes, outselling the PS4 and Xbox One last month, there is plenty of reason to believe this third-party support will continue.
But the question still remains, how will Doom and Wolfenstein II perform on the Nintendo Switch? Both of these games are fast-paced and graphically intensive, not to mention Doom’s producer, Marty Stratton, believing heavily in high graphical fidelity and frame-rate:
We’ve always been at the forefront of saying we want our games to run as fast as possible at the highest resolution possible. So for us, that goal is 1080p and 60 FPS. Along with that goal, the mantra of our technology team is that we want to be the best-looking game out there at 60 FPS and 1080p.”
So with the Switch not being as powerful as the PS4 and Xbox One, we wonder what sort of downgrades are in order to ensure playing on the Switch, while docked and in handheld mode, is just as enjoyable as it is on Playstation and Xbox. Either way, you’re only going to be able to play the new Doom on-the-go on one of these platforms. That fact alone, in my book, is incredibly exciting.
Excited for Doom and Wolfenstein II coming to the Switch? Maybe you want to see some other big third-party games on the Switch in the near future? Let us know in the comments below!