At this early juncture in the Switch's life, few third-parties have supported the console as fully as Bethesda. On top of its widely acclaimed RPG, Skyrim, the publisher has brought Doom--one of the most brutal and visually intensive shooters of the current generation--to the hybrid console courtesy of developer Panic Button, which is also handling the upcoming Switch port of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
As with the Switch version of Doom before it, Panic Button has made some sacrifices to bring Wolfenstein II to Nintendo's hybrid console. The game is capped at 30 FPS, with a lower resolution and some muddier textures than the PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions. Despite this, the experience still remains very much intact. Some visual compromises aside, Wolfenstein II looks and feels like the same game that launched for other platforms last fall, and while it may not be quite as pretty as those versions, it's still one of the most visually impressive games coming to Nintendo's console.
We had a chance to go hands-on with the Switch version of Wolfenstein II at PAX East 2018. In the video above, you can watch us play through a portion of the game's second chapter in docked mode. Like the Switch version of Doom, Wolfenstein II will also support motion-controlled aiming using the controller's gyroscope; that option wasn't available for us to try during our hands-on session, but it will be available in the game from launch.
Bethesda still hasn't announced a release date for the Switch version of Wolfenstein II, but the game is slated to launch for the console sometime this year. The shooter was one of the most acclaimed games of 2017; GameSpot's Kallie Plagge awarded it a 9/10 in our Wolfenstein II review and said, "Despite some heavy-handed moments that feel like missteps in its message, satisfying Nazi-killing action bolsters its completely bonkers storyline in a way that only Wolfenstein can achieve."
