Apex Legends released Tuesday on the Nintendo Switch, and the first reactions of fans to the game Battle Royale … are not good. They are disappointed with the game’s performance and say that playing across platforms against users on high-performance systems puts them at a great disadvantage.
“I can excuse the bad graphics, but on the Switch, the game looks horrible to play,” wrote one player on the Switch subreddit on Wednesday afternoon.
“The game drops to about 10 frames when you’re in any shooting,” says Reddit’s initiator of discussion. “The graphics are cloudy in the docked mode … I don’t even want to know what a laptop looks like.”
Apex Legends, which was released in 2019 on the PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One, runs in 720p resolution in the Switch’s coupled mode and 576p on the handheld device. Slower frame rates and lower resolutions give Switch players less time to react in a fast-paced shooter and less visual information than competitors on other systems can get at a glance.
Reddit user Ann0ying posted a visibility comparison of a switch running Apex Legends and the same frame on an Xbox One in 1080p. “Bring the enemy model closer (is it really there?)”, They wrote, about a pixelated stain that does not resemble anything important from a distance.
“Apex runs on a highly customized Source engine that was built to expand the loading distance for long-distance views and such, ”noted redditor JabroniSn0w.
“It looks good at times,” says YouTuber RGT 85, “but it definitely looks blurry. … The frame rate is aimed at 30 frames per second, but it definitely drops sometimes, and it kind of disappointed me a little. … If you play first-person shooter games on other platforms, it’s definitely shocking. “
Switch users are recommending that players turn off the cross-play option (in the game settings menu) and join the Switch-only lobbies for a better chance at Kings Canyon. Playing against people on platforms where visibility is not a problem, it is thought, may not be as balanced as facing people who are in the same boat as Switch players. For some reason, probably because it puts players in a faster game, the multiplatform game is enabled by default for Switch. But opting for switch-only lobbies means much longer waiting times to start a game, given the much smaller installation base of the new release.
Panic Button, the wine store that brought Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal for the Switch, developed Apex Legends for the console as well. Many players still pointed to the work the studio did in bringing a hardcore multiplayer shooter to the Nintendo platform, and the post-launch support that both titles received, in the hope that Apex Legends will get better on Switch over time
“They were still correcting Doom a few years later, although I didn’t need it and they didn’t, ”said a Redditor. “Wait a few months. I also expected better, but I’m not disappointed, if that makes sense. “
Apex Legends released on March 9 on Switch, giving players on that platform 30 free Battle Pass levels for season 8, which is already underway. Switching players also earns twice as much XP during the first two weeks that the game is available.