Review: Wolfenstein II for Nintendo Switch is a flawed but competent port

Platform: Nintendo Switch (also available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC)

Developer: MachineGames, Panic Button

Publisher: Bethesda

MSRP: $59.99

In 2017, Bethesda dropped a sequel to MachineGames’ acclaimed Wolfenstein reboot in the form of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. I reviewed it before it came out and praised it for its “Oscar-worthy storytelling [combined] with game of the year quality gameplay”, it was a definite standout for 2017.

With that said, when I heard just before launch that it was coming to Nintendo Switch at some point, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Now that it’s finally here, I’m happy to say that port studio Panic Button and MachineGames have brought an incredibly competent version of the shooter to the console/portable hybrid but it isn’t totally glamorous.

For this review, we’re just going to be focusing on the Nintendo Switch’s port and the additions it brings. We’ve talked at great length about the core gameplay and story in our original review so for those curious about what we have to say about that, you can go check it out by clicking here.

What Panic Button was able to achieve here is pretty tremendous given how demanding Wolfenstein II is, it’s something that we should commend even with its warts. It maintains that wonderful flow of brutal, bloody gameplay so you can blow the limbs off Nazis in public, even if it means catching a few side-eyes from people around you.

While I recommend playing it was a Pro controller for the best experience, Wolfenstein II still plays smoothly and manages to stick to its 30 FPS target quite consistently. During some later sections of the game where the screen is particularly busy with details and various enemy types, you’ll find that Wolfenstein II does get quite ugly with low-resolution areas and some dips in FPS that cause the game to chug.

By no means is this something that made me want to stop playing but it was noticeable enough that it’ll make people realize the reality of the hardware they’re playing on. Wolfenstein II’s gunplay is reliant on its high-speed combat, arguably more so than other FPS games, so it’s incredibly important that they kept a consistent FPS and for the most part they do. This is only a chunk of the game so it’s rather impressive that Panic Button only suffers in those particular areas rather than sporadically across the entire game.

The visual fidelity of the FPS is certainly lacking. The resolution takes a hit with low-quality textures everywhere, character models have dramatically less detail, and there’s even a part in the game where you’re asked to read directly off a paper and it’s super blurry and borderline unreadable. It’s a bit shocking that particular bit got overlooked in development and no one found a workaround for it or cleaned it up but it’s pretty much an anomaly.

Even with its lower quality visuals, it still looks fairly good for the screen you’re playing it on. If you go into docked mode on a TV, you’ll probably take it out pretty fast as it’s not exactly eye candy on a nice TV but on the Switch screen, I found myself getting over the differences pretty quickly.

Wolfenstein II remains mostly unchanged but there is one major addition. Wolfenstein II on Nintendo Switch features the ability to use motion controls to aim your gun and while it’s not bad, I also don’t see myself going back and turning on the ability to use it in the options menu. You have to hold your hand quite steady at all-times if you don’t want your camera to be shaking as if BJ’s walking around in the freezing cold without a jacket so during moments of silence you’ll probably be turning it off so you don’t throw up from the earthquake happening on screen.

When you do use it, it’s a fairly simple mechanic. You just wave your Joy-Con around to aim it at enemies and then hold ZL to use your iron sights and fire away with ZR. Sometimes you’ll have to use your thumb to use the stick and help move the camera a bit so it’s not a mechanic I can see people using in their entire playthrough but it’s there for those who want to mess around with it and you may find some brief satisfaction out of popping headshots manually.

The Verdict:

If you’re buying Wolfenstein II on Nintendo Switch, you likely aren’t doing it to get the best possible version of the game. I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend this to first time players of the game but if someone had some curiosity in this version, I wouldn’t hesitate to point them towards it.

Despite not being the most beautiful game out there, Panic Button has maintained the fun factor for Wolfenstein II and proven they’re an incredibly capable studio when it comes to building games for Nintendo Switch. If you enjoyed Doom (2016) for Nintendo Switch, you’re more than likely to appreciate Panic Button’s efforts for Wolfenstein II.

If you have yet to play this masterpiece and only own a Nintendo Switch, I’m happy to report that Wolfenstein II on Nintendo Switch is handled with great care despite its issues and is still an effective way to experience MachineGames’ alternate history epic.