Star Wars Outlawsis coming toNintendo Switch 2on September 4. Massive Entertainment created an open-world adventure in a galaxy far, far away which failed to hit home with critics and didn’t set the commercial world on fire either,leaving Ubisoft to blame lacking interest in the brand right now for its failure. With any luck, this port will grant it a second chance.
In the past, I’ve written abouthow history will be kind to Star Wars Outlaws, as most players went into it ready to hate whatever they experienced. They had painted an idea of the sort of game Ubisoft makes in their heads long before picking up the controller, assuming it was set to be another generic open world with uninteresting characters and quests that would result in unsatisfying bloat that just wasn’t worth your time. While Outlaws is far from perfect, I think it pushes the Ubisoft open-world formula forward like few other games in recent memory.
The usual cabal of right-wing consumers also assumed it was woke because you played as Kay Vess, a female characterwho didn’t belong because she’s not super duper hot.
The Nintendo Switch 2 version will be an opportunity for a whole new audience to discover this hidden gem, although I fear its lacklustre visuals and technical issues might be a bit too hard to stomach. Judging from the recent Direct, it looks like an outdatedPS3game trying to do way too much with not enough horsepower. What’s worse is this won’t be the last port of similar PS5 and Xbox games that look and play worse on Nintendo’s new console. That is a reality we are unfortunately going to have to accept in the months and years to come.
The Nintendo Switch Has Always Been A Weird Place For Ports
Even if the original Switch wasn’t powerful enough to stomach porting titles likeThe Witcher 3orDoom Eternal, it was so popular that major publishers weregoing to find a way.Projects like this were often outsourced to talented studios like Panic Button, who were able to conjure up what are now known as ‘impossible ports’ for the platform. They should not be able to run on such a middling piece of hardware, but by some miracle they do. Such ports sold well and also introduced modern classics to an audience that, in many cases, didn’t own any other console. And if you did, the compromises here weren’t nearly bad enough to prevent a second purchase.
When the Nintendo Switch 2 was revealed and confirmed to be more powerful than Valve’sSteam Deck, part of me believed this age of impossible ports was over, and soon we would simply have native versions of modern titles on the console that didn’t have to brutally nip or tuck to justify their own existence.Launching with a decent conversion of Cyberpunk 2077 was a wonderful start, but I’ll need to seeElden Ring,Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and more looking and playing brilliantly before I feel truly convinced. Besides, Star Wars Outlaws looks awfully rough right now, and I honestly can’t believe Ubisoft decided to show this gameplay footage publicly.
Star Wars Outlaws Is A Blessing And A Curse On Nintendo Switch 2
Character models are ripe with artifacts, environments sport muddy textures, and general performance even in relatively static scenes appears inconsistent. I would hate to see how things cope while speeding across the desert plains of Tatooine on your speeder bike, as it won’t take much for the entire image to become an uncomfortable blur. Ubisoft confirmed in a developer featurette that Red Lynx is working on this port, and alongside existing DLC we can also expect unique controls and other features in the Nintendo Switch 2 version. These are great additions, but if the base experience feels like garbage, do they truly matter?
Sports games are another victim of the porting process. While the gameplay remains faithful, it’s hard not to spot the visual and performance flaws in recent titles like WWE 2K25.
Star Wars Outlaws won’t be alone in delivering such lacklustre ports in the years to come. As developers try desperately to squeeze massive games onto a platform that is ultimately less powerful than the competition, compromises will happen. Star Wars Outlaws buckled on the PS5 at times, so it was obviously going to struggle on the Switch 2. I suppose I just didn’t expect the flaws to be this obvious.
I’m playing third-party games and ports on Switch 2 more than I ever did on the original console, but deep down, I know going over to my PS5 will always be the superior option. Whether I’m ready to admit it or not, Nintendo still lags far behind the competition.
