[Not my video, but here’s a framerate counter set to the first 22 minutes of docked gameplay.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK7x_25ckL8)
Whenever basically anything happens, you’re hovering between 20fps and 25fps. There are extended periods of 30fps where very little happens, but to counteract that, early scenes like the boat ride to the Bright Falls or being in the Diner run at ~25fps. The 360 version from 2011 did not have these levels of performance issues.
On top of that, despite running at a higher resolution than the 360 version did, the overall image itself is lower quality.
Here’s a quick side-by-side crop of the boat ride to Bright Falls with the original 2011 360 version and the new Switch port.
https://i.imgur.com/R46Ppp2.png
As you can see:
– Switch is benefitting from higher resolution
– Switch version lacks shadows the 360 version has (look at the windows on the little blue building!)
– Textures are so bad at the same distance on Switch that you straight up can’t even see the text on the building
– There’s a missing “fog” to the city that makes it look very flat and plain in the Switch version
Please consider playing this *fantastic game* on a different platform. This port is not up to snuff.
by enterthedragonpunch
25 Comments
Thanks for the heads up that’s too bad. I was hoping to give this a go but I’ll stick to playing it on PC I suppose.
Oh woof.
I looked for who handled the port and the only thing I could find was remedy themselves?
Should have really asked around for a switch savvy port team to help if this is how it was going, there’s now a small army of teams with the know how to bring bigger, denser, world’s with a lot more going on in them than Alan wake at much more modern fidelity and better performance.
So should I get this or Nier?
Lol.
I wonder which port is worse, this one or Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden? Hands down that was the worst port I’d ever played. Sad that Alan Wake isn’t a great port, I was looking forward to it.
Gasp! Shocker. Same story with (most) ports.
Hate to hear this. I love this game.
Thank you for posting this. I’m not a graphics snob, but most games need to be solid 30 at the very least. I dream of an always 60 “switch 2”.
This is sad to hear. The game deserves more care than this.
Sounds more like Alan Wake Demastered
This is my honest opinion. You should assume every switch game runs poorly until you have seen reports to the contrary.
Since the switch release so many games release with performance issues. This isn’t unique to this game or even a recent thing.
Really no excuse for this game to run poorly like this. Such a disappointment.
Wanna me my suprised face?
😐
I really wish they would drop a Switch-Pro There is no reason not to, they have released so many damn games the switch cant handle.
Whilst I’m a proponent of the switch 2 or whatever it will be called, here it’s a half-assed port.
I mean reaching X1 level on the switch is hard if not impossible that is a given..but not reaching the level of the 360 on the switch that’s just people who did not invest seriously in the port.
I never played Nier so I bought it on the switch, now that’s a proper port.
Seriously there are studios like Panic Button that can manage your ports, especially if the IP wants to expand and reach new players, the switch is very good at making people discover games they weren’t really meant to play…
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Disappointing to read those issues but thanks for the feedback
Pricing error made it around $1 USD in Mexico. The entire country is going to play the broken port lmao
Funny enough, a big bug from PS5 is fixed here: If I set my console to spanish, the spanish dub runs normally, but if in the audio options I activate the Force English Audio option: CInematics have the dub and gameplay has the english voices.
Switch doesn’t have this lol
Bro, it was 1 dollar in Mexican eShop
Never been less surprised in my life
Honestly, there were a couple busy sections on PS4 even that had very noticeable frame drops. Almost unplayable at points. Kinda disappointed with the remaster in general.
Eh, about as well as it runs on my “100% not for gaming, only bought it for work related stuff”laptop.
And I’m talking the original game, not the remastered version.
The Switch is really showing it’s age now. Long in the tooth.
I basically use it now just for Zelda/Mario and less demanding indie games. It’s great for Slay the Spire/Hades etc.
Hard to justify most third party titles when you have a next (current?) gen console.
This is very unfortunate
Alan Wake is an incredible game, and I was hoping it would run better considering it’s a remaster of a decade old game
While I absolutely adore my Switch OLED for Nintendo games & Indies like Hollow Knight, Steam Deck is where it’s pretty much @ for me regarding 3rd party AAAs. I hope Switch 2 will have an ARM based chipset at the caliber of the new Apple M1 devices cuz it’s a friggen miracle to see games like this ported on this system
How do devs keep getting away with this, I watched a Digital Foundry video on the NMS port too and it was straight up broken. Clearly the Switch can’t handle these ports so why keep porting them? Oh wait, $$$.
It’s on my wish list if they fix the game I will pick up after they patch it up