Final Fantasy 7 Remake and more: the age of «impossible Switch ports» is over

Domagoj Belancic

22-1-2026

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

With the Switch 2, Nintendo has finally launched another system that can compete with the current console generation. Ambitious ports such as Final Fantasy 7: Remake point to a rosy third-party future.

Since launching the Wii in 2006, Nintendo has bid farewell to the expensive technological arms race known as the console war. Since then, the Japanese developer has successfully focused on innovation and gimmicks rather than major graphical advances. An early highlight of Nintendo’s Blue Ocean strategy was the Switch. The handheld hybrid is poised to become the best-selling console of all time.

However, its lack of state-of-the-art technology has been a decisive disadvantage. Nintendo fans have had to make do without graphically elaborate AAA third-party releases on their consoles for around 20 years.

With the Switch 2, this old Nintendo problem seems to be disappearing. Ports for games such as Star Wars Outlaws, Assassin’s Creed Shadows and the Final Fantasy 7 Remake released today prove that the small tablet console can keep up with the stationary big dogs from Sony and Microsoft.

And that’s just the beginning.

The era of impossible ports on the original Switch

To understand why current third-party support (and the quality of ports) on the Switch 2 is so exceptional, it’s worth taking a look back at the Switch 1.

Nintendo’s first console-handheld hybrid was already hopelessly outdated in terms of technology at launch in 2017. The tablet was equipped with an Nvidia Tegra X1, which couldn’t even compete with smartphones of the time.

Support from third-party manufacturers was rare as a result – at least in the AAA sector. Graphically complex games that run on the PS4 or Xbox One either couldn’t be ported to Nintendo’s outdated hardware at all or only with considerable effort.

It was around this time that the term impossible ports, which has since become established in gaming circles, was coined. This refers to seemingly impossible ports of graphically complex AAA games running on the Switch with the help of black magic (I can’t explain it any other way).

Every impossible port was accompanied by massive media surprise at the time and celebrated by the trade press like the first moon landing.

The best-known and most impressive impossible ports include, among others:

• Doom (2017)
• Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus (2018)
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2019)
• Doom Eternal (2020)
• The Outer Worlds (2020)
• Hogwarts Legacy (2023)
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2024)

If you actually examine individual games from this list, it’ll quickly become clear why these ports are described as impossible. Many titles had to be graphically mutilated beyond recognition. Just take The Witcher 3. Its drawbacks include: a massively decreased render distance, reduced complexity and object density, compressed textures and cutscenes as well as a frame rate that often hovers south of the 30 fps limit.

Add to this the borderline low resolution of up to 540p in handheld mode and a maximum of 720p in TV mode. Especially on a larger screen, the beautiful Witcher world degenerates into a blurry mishmash.

The port barely shares any of the visual identity of the original.

In addition to visual compromises, some ports had to accept further cuts. In Doom and The Outer Worlds, for example, large objects are placed into the game world to restrict the player’s view. The open-world of Hogwarts Legacy even had to be split up on the Switch with loading times between individual areas. All so the console wouldn’t explode. Ooof…

Don’t get me wrong, these ports are incredibly impressive technically – hats off to the development teams. But I wouldn’t recommend anyone actually play a game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance on the Switch if they have other options.

The Switch 2 isn’t state of the art either – but it’s future-proof

Let’s fast forward to the present. With the Switch 2, Nintendo’s delivered what many fans have wanted for years: a larger and, above all, more powerful Switch.

However, even on the Switch 2, «more powerful» doesn’t equal «state of the art». Nintendo continues to stay out of the technological arms race that’s now even reached the mobile gaming market thanks to PC handhelds.

The console contains a special chipset (T239) developed in collaboration with Nvidia. At 8 nm, the manufacturing technology is neither the latest nor the most efficient – current high-end chips in smartphones are manufactured at 3 nm. Compared to powerful mobile devices, the CPU can at best be described as middling. The GPU is based on Nvidia’s Ampere architecture, now five years old.

But despite these limitations, the Switch 2 ticks off many important points that are vital in developing and porting modern games – a decisive advantage over the Switch 1. Nintendo’s hybrid console has sufficient memory bandwidth for current games and more RAM than its predecessor, supports modern graphics technologies such as ray tracing and can also handle AI upscaling with a DLSS version specially made for the hardware.

In short: even if the Switch 2 can’t compete with current top devices (which often cost many times more), the handheld feels future-proof in contrast to the Switch 1.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake and more: true «wow» moments

Several studios have already proven that Nintendo’s little tablet has a lot to offer with crazy ports of current-gen games. One of the most impressive is Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which released today.

Yeah, I know. Strictly speaking, it’s a PS4 title. However, the Switch 2 version is based on the PS5 edition, which comes with some graphical upgrades, including added details and improved lighting.

Seeing the game on my Switch 2 screen for the first time, I have one of those rare «wow» moments. In this case, «wow» translates as: «Unbelievable the things that are possible these days.» Final Fantasy 7 Remake looks almost as cool on the small, portable Switch 2 as it does on my monstrous PS5.

Sure, some of the textures aren’t as crisp as on Sony’s stationary console. The PS5 offers better render distance too, same for the frame rate and resolution. But these are tolerable compromises that don’t have a significant impact on the visual identity of the title – leagues better than the brutal cuts that had to be made for games like The Witcher 3 on the first Switch.

Equally impressive: the game even looks good in TV mode on my 83-inch Samsung OLED thanks to upscaling. Gone are the days of horrendous 720p rubbish. Hallelujah, and praise be to DLSS.

I was similarly impressed by the ports for Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Star Wars Outlaws. All three titles impressively demonstrate that the Switch 2 is capable of realising modern open-world games without major concessions.

The latter port is particularly noteworthy. With Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft managed to add hardware-accelerated ray tracing for light, shadows and reflections in the Switch 2 version.

Let that sink in for a moment. Ray tracing. In a massive open-world game. On a Nintendo tablet, which consumes just 10 watts in handheld mode, while stationary consoles draw over 200 watts. Unbelievable!

And that’s just the beginning

The first six months of the Switch 2’s life cycle are giving us hope for a rosy third-party future. And a glance at the 2026 release calendar gives us even more cause for optimism. It’s gradually filling up with top-class AAA releases from third-party manufacturers.

Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, 007: First Light, High on Life 2 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are just some of the graphically impressive current-gen games finding their way onto Nintendo’s hybrid. It appears the age of impossible ports is over. Or to put it another way: almost nothing is «impossible» on the Switch 2.

Our colleagues at Digital Foundry are similarly optimistic, expecting «many more demanding Switch 2 ports» in this console generation after talking to Ubisoft developers about the Switch 2 port of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Not least because the Switch 2 is being directly targeted as a home for many future multiplatform titles. This’ll eliminate the need for time-consuming subsequent optimisations. Games will be optimised for the Switch 2 right from the start in order to get even more out of the small console’s chipset.

Just one last question: how long will the Switch 2 stay in this unusual third-party situation for Nintendo fans? After all, there are increasing indications that Sony will drop the next PlayStation as early as 2027 or 2028.

If the current console generation (PS5, Xbox Series X/S) is any indication, there’s no need to worry just yet. After all, even in the fifth year of the PS5, we’re still seeing big-name titles dropping as cross-gen releases on the PS4. So it could be a while before «real» next-gen exclusives that can’t run on the Switch 2 even with the use of black magic are released.

Domagoj Belancic

Senior Editor

Domagoj.Belancic@digitecgalaxus.ch

My love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.

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