When CD Projekt RED announced the release of The Witcher 3 on Nintendo Switch, everybody was curious about how well the game would run. The Witcher 3 offers a massive open world and when you add the DLC expansions to the base game, you’re in for hundreds of hours. This is way bigger than Skyrim, this is perhaps even the most ambitious project ever on Nintendo’s hybrid console so we took our time to see if CD Projekt RED did the impossible.
What is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition
Before we jump over to the Nintendo Switch version, it’s important to understand which game you’re getting. This is the Complete Edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and it includes an unbelievable amount of content, starting with the base game. We reviewed it back in 2015, so if you want to understand what The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has to offer, be sure to read the full review here. In short, The Witcher 3 is an instant classic in its genre, really innovating the third-person action/adventure genre thanks to the inclusion of an impressive story, incredible mini-games, and side-quests to keep you entertained. Our conclusion of 2015 still stands to this day:
This game is a must-own for every RPG-gamer out there. It has a good story, satisfying combat, and a beautiful immersive world. There’s a tutorial for every beginning Witcher and the story has been written in a way that every non-Witcher fan can buy the game and start playing.
To have a game like this on your Nintendo Switch is great but it gets even better when you see that all big Expansions are also available in this version, including the two big ones: Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Where Hearts of Stone offered a lot more of the same, read our full review here, it did deliver what fans wanted most, more Witcher 3 gameplay. Our original conclusion:
The Witcher: Hearts of Stone delivers a lot of great new Witcher content. Sure, it offers more of the same; but more Witcher is never bad! The new story is very interesting and brings back some familiar faces. The new missions feel fresh and you’ll want to continue playing until the very end of the expansion. The story is told using great dialogues and cut scenes. Aside from the story you can go nuts in the side-missions, rune crafting or Gwent playing. Hearts of Stone is a very impressive expansion pack, to say the least.
And then, there was the big one, the Blood and Wine expansion, read the full review here. This was an amazing expansion back in the days and it even blurred the line between a full game and a post-release expansion. Introducing a new arc in the story along with an entirely new environment really impressed us:
The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine doesn’t feel like an expansion since it has so much to offer. You’ll enjoy this expansion for over 25 hours and won’t get bored doing so. New monsters, new Gwent cards, and gorgeous new locations all add to this impressive adventure. CD Projekt RED didn’t just create an expansion, they created the perfect end for Geralt of Rivia, and he’ll be in our hearts for a very long time to come!
Every second of these grand adventures is bundled in this Nintendo Switch version, which was ported on a single game card, needing no additional download. How CD Projekt RED pulled this off is beyond me and it even smells like dark magic. It’s incredible to have this amount of content on a portable system and although it comes at a cost, you’ll be amazed by this port from start to finish.
The Nintendo Switch version
So how well is this game ported? Time to answer the question that’s on everybody’s minds. Well, simply put, it’s amazing. Of course, it looks way less impressive and it doesn’t run at a solid 60fps as it does on other consoles or PC but that’s not why you’re getting this Nintendo Switch version at all. It’s important to look at this version from a different perspective. We’re not looking for the best-looking version of the game or the version that hits most frames while playing. This Nintendo Switch version is none of those but it’s the only portable version of the grand adventure, and that’s its main selling point. For the sake of the review, I played mostly in handheld mode to get the full portable experience and I advise other players to do the same.
I played the game on PlayStation 4 (Pro) back in the days and when I play the Switch version in television mode, the differences are simply too big to ignore. Playing in television mode, the graphical setback really took me out of the immersion, constantly reminding myself that I had a better version of the game in my house and if I wanted to play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on my television, I should still go for one of the other console versions, which are also a lot cheaper to get in stores.
Once I started playing in handheld mode, I forgot all about my other versions. Playing a game this enormous in the palm of your hands is so unreal. It’s hard to believe they pulled it off but the game really impresses in its portable form. There’s no compromise in content, this is the Complete Edition, including hundreds of hours of gameplay and even more if you get hooked to the Gwent mini-game. Yes, it does take a lot of steps back visually speaking but in handheld mode, you won’t really care about that. It might look less impressive than the original, being able to carry it around with you wherever you want to go really makes up for that. At this point, I’m still puzzled about how they managed to make this work but all I have to say is that I’m incredibly thankful they did. To this date, this has to be the most impressive Switch game on the market.
Conclusion
Playing a game this huge on the go is magical, it makes you question how CD Projekt RED managed to pull this off but you’ll be grateful for what they did from start to finish. I advise everybody to play this in handheld mode as the graphical setback in television mode might turn you away from this version quickly. This doesn’t matter at all while playing it in handheld mode. That being said, it’s by far one of the most, if not the most, impressive game on the hybrid console.
