Almost Unplayable: New Nintendo Switch Port Ends Up In Disaster

The Switch port of the Batman Arkham Trilogy is a hot mess, Arkham Knight especially.

Batman arkham trilogy
The Switch version of the Arkham Trilogy is insultingly bad. | © Warner Bros.

Batman: Arkham Knight on the Nintendo Switch? That kind of graphical fidelity, on such an underpowered console? It sounded too good to be true even when the Batman Arkham Trilogy port was first announced at a Nintendo Direct back in June. And as it turns out, it is! Arkham Knight's Switch port looks bad, runs worse and is barely playable at the best of times.

As usual, Digital Foundry went very in-depth on the many issues of the port, calling it "disastrously poor", but it doesn't take an in-depth analysis to see what's wrong with it, one glance is more than enough. Between frequent sub-30fps frame dips, constant stuttering and noticeably poor visual quality, this is easily the worst way to experience the game.

The other games seem mostly fine, but I'd hate to play through two games of a trilogy only to have the last one be nearly unplayable!

Arkham Knight: Not The Port The Switch Deserves, And Not the One It Needs

Batman arkham knight
Arkham Knight was already raked over the coals for its PC performance at its initial launch. | © Warner Bros.

The fact that this port was even developed at all is kind of baffling, considering how resource-intensive the game already is on other systems. Yes, other games like Nier: Automata somehow managed to have both high visual fidelity and good performance on the Switch. But those kinds of ports are real technical achievements and should be treated as the exception rather than the rule!

And after Arkham Knight already had disastrous performance issues even on high-end PCs at launch, I definitely didn't expect Warner Bros to produce that kind of Christmas miracle. Even so, the barely-playable mess they delivered here definitely isn't worth their $60 asking price. This is little more than an attempt to cash in on the Christmas rush, and you should avoid rewarding it at all costs.

Leonhard Kuehnel

When Leo isn’t busy playing the best videogame you’ve never heard of, he uses his knowledge to report on the latest news in the gaming industry. Never ask him how long his backlog is, though, you won’t like the answer....