Cyberpunk 2077 Nintendo Switch 2 - Nightcity on the go!

By Sam Coles: 

It is hard to believe that Cyberpunk was once a complete disaster when it launched back in 2020, where the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game specifically were unplayable. Where the framerate and resolution were so low you could have mistaken it for the PS1 game, however over the years the game has been fixed (well on the current gen: Xbox Series X, PS5, PC and NS2), where the game somewhat resembles the vision there were going for. However, what most were not expecting was a port to Nintendo’s hybrid console the Nintendo Switch 2, most were skeptical about the performance on the platform but surprisingly it runs very well on the handheld device.  

Cyberpunk 2077 was announced for the Nintendo Switch 2 during Nintendo’s announcement for the console, as a launch title nonetheless, and people were shocked to say the least. Nintendo’s track record was somewhat decent at that point, but it took a bit of nosedive after the announcement when they started announcing prices for the games which I was not pleased with, but that was mostly just Mario Kart. Anyway, what shocked people the most about Cyberpunk’s port like The Witcher 3 Switch port, the game would be on the cartridge including the Phantom Liberty DLC which is black magic for a game of that scale to be on one Switch 2 cart. 

So, Cyberpunk 2077 on Nintendo Switch 2, is it worth it? Does it run well on Nintendo’s platform? In short, yes, well for the most part let’s get into it. Cyberpunk takes place in Night City in the titular year of 2077 and you play as V, who can be either male or female. You are a mercenary where you can pick from three distinct backgrounds; you have Street Kid, Corpo and Nomad where these have different introductions; however, the story plays out the same after that with some exceptions such as dialogue choices. You end up being hired to pull off a heist to steal a biochip, but everything goes wrong and you end up having a ghost of a dead eco-terrorist embedded in your brain. Turns out Johnny Silverhand, who is on the chip, is trying to overwrite your mind, and you are now on borrowed time, and you must find a way to stop it. 

The story in this game still holds up well, and to be honest a lot of the aspects of this story are bit too real these days with corporations sucking the life out of people and the earth, as well as A.I. going rogue. The voice acting is still fantastic, and the morbid speeches from Johnny Silverhand performed by Kenu Reeves are brilliantly voiced. 

Now onto the main reason you will be interested in this game, and that is the performance of the game and how it looks. In short, the game runs really well; it gives you two options a quality and performance mode. 

Quality mode goes for better graphics at 30 frames per second, which is how I played it mostly in handheld mode and hits its 30-fps target for the most part it would only hitch when you are driving fast and it loads the next bit of the map with the streaming tech and it hitches slightly. Same during combat when it gets busy it will drop here and there, but it is not game breaking, and it doesn’t happen too often. The performance mode goes for 40 frames per second and one might be confused by that, but if you are new to this setting the Switch 2 has a 120-fps screen, when you put the game in 40 fps it gives you the illusion of 60 frames per second as it triples your frames with the higher fresh rate and it work really well. The only problem I have is that it drops the visual fidelity considerably, and it just doesn’t look great, so I kept it to quality mode. Graphically the game looks fantastic; they have retained the look of the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions but at a much lower resolution, however it uses DLSS upscaling to sharpen the image even when it is running at lower resolution natively it looks as if it is running at a high image scale and resolution.  

Overall Cyberpunk on the Switch 2 is worthy of your time, there is something about exploring Night City in the comfort of my bed in the morning, I get fully immersed especially with a good set of headphones on. If you can, I would highly recommend picking this up, especially physically as it is complete on the cart. 

P.S. Apologies for being quiet on the blog, video content has taken over but also a lot of personal things have happened in my life where writing has taken a bit of a backseat, I will be back to writing more regularly soon.