3 Nintendo Switch 2 games that prove it's a portable powerhouse
Who says the Switch 2 isn't a powerful games console?
The Nintendo Switch 2 recently celebrated its first birthday, meaning we’ve now had a good year or so to really put Nintendo’s latest hybrid console through its paces.
Just after it launched, I wrote about three games in the console’s initial lineup that really showed off the improved hardware, and in the months since I’ve played a lot more.
Unlike its predecessor, which in its latter years shipped too many limp third-party ports that sometimes even had to turn to the cloud to get a game running, the Switch 2 has come right out of the gate with a host of very impressive efforts that you wouldn’t think twice about playing on the platform. And a number of Nintendo’s own games have been lookers too.
There have been loads of Switch 2 games that have impressed me in its first year, but here are three that have really stood out.
Star Wars Outlaws
It would have been a bit of a shame if the first truly open-world Star Wars game had skipped Nintendo platforms altogether, but luckily Star Wars Outlaws made its way to Switch 2 a year after it first launched. And it’s a bit of a stunner.
The game is understandably scaled back compared to the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions, with a noticeably softer image in handheld and docked mode and less visual detail to pore over. But that’s to be expected.
What’s remarkable is that Ubisoft’s development teams have managed to translate this feat of virtual Star Wars tourism to a handheld platform without it feeling completely compromised.
The game’s signature ray-traced reflections remain intact and Kay Vess can whizz around Tatooine’s vast desert on her speeder bike at a mostly rock solid 30fps. Unless you’re doing side-by-side comparisons with the game running on a PS5, it’s hard not to marvel at how good it all looks.
Star Wars Outlaws launched with some frustrating mandatory stealth sections that made parts of the game a bit of a slog, but thankfully those have long since been removed, allowing you to scoundrel your way through the galaxy in any way to see fit.
Motion controls in the Switch 2 version make the fairly rudimentary gunplay a lot more enjoyable, and the game features some of the best HD Rumble effects I’ve experienced on the console. And the best thing of all? Ubisoft has somehow managed to fit this sprawling Star Wars epic into a 20GB(ish) file. May the storage space be with you.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle started its life as one of the crown jewels in this generation’s Xbox lineup, before instantly becoming one of the best PS5 games when it eventually made its way to Sony’s console. A couple of years later, MachineGames completed a hat-trick of excellency with its miraculous Switch 2 version of the game.
I’m happy to report that Indy’s whip-cracking original adventure is no less thrilling on Nintendo’s hybrid. In fact, I might have enjoyed the brilliant tutorial section – a deeply nostalgic playable recreation of Raiders of the Lost Ark’s opening scene – even more on Switch 2 than I did on my PS5 Pro, largely owing to the novelty of playing through it in bed.
In relentlessly high-speed first-person games, the 30fps target we get here might be a non-starter, but it’s less of an issue in this one, with Indy spending as much time puzzling as he does knocking out Nazis. And I found the slapstick brawling to be just as much fun at half the frame rate.
A lot of the graphical features, including ray-tracing, survive the transition to Switch 2, and while the game’s stunning environments are rendered at a much lower resolution than on more powerful hardware, DLSS is mostly very good at maintaining the detail.
MachineGames pulled out all the stops with its Switch 2 version of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, implementing gyro and even mouse control options. Do I wish it also had Wii-style motion-controlled whipping? Of course, but you can’t have it all.
Pokémon Pokopia
At first glance, this ingenious Pokémon-infused hybrid of Minecraft, Animal Crossing and Dragon Quest Builders doesn’t look like a game you’d use to highlight the Switch 2’s power. But as well as being a delightful game about restoring a mysterious post-apocalyptic world with the help of endearingly upbeat monsters, Pokémon Pokopia is also quietly a technical showpiece for the console.
While its visuals won’t immediately wow you like Cyberpunk 2077’s, the cute and colourful art style really pops, complimented by a lighting system that really brings your blocky Poké-paradises to life.
Once you’ve really started to fill out your Pokédex and build up some towns, Pokémon Pokopia quickly becomes a very visually busy game, so it’s a testament to the developers that I very rarely noticed frame drops whether playing in docked or handheld mode.
The handheld resolution is slightly blurrier in motion, but I’m happy to make that tradeoff for the rock solid performance.
Pokémon Pokopia may also be the best advert yet for the Switch 2’s mouse controls. Playing this way makes it a lot easier to build and terraform with precision, while techniques like Rock Smash are more intuitive when you can directly point at the blocks you want to pound.
I do still wish using the Joy-Con as a mouse was more comfortable, but I’m very glad it’s an option when I sit down to rebuild my grateful Pokémon’s broken home.
