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Discussion Which porting house has made the most impressive Switch ports?

Which do you think are the most impressive?

  • Panic Button

    Votes: 30 42.3%

  • Saber Interactive

    Votes: 19 26.8%

  • Virtuos

    Votes: 9 12.7%

  • Rebellion North

    Votes: 4 5.6%

  • Feral Interactive

    Votes: 4 5.6%

  • QLOC

    Votes: 1 1.4%

  • Iron Galaxy

    Votes: 3 4.2%

  • Other (Post in comments)

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Total voters
    71
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Chain Chomp
Over the Switch's lifespan, there have been a multitude of ambitious ports to the system, including the infamous "impossible ports" starting from Doom way back in 2017.

Which studio do you think has done the most impressive work in bringing demanding games to the Switch, and why in your opinion to they deserve the title?


For reference, some examples and some of the noteworthy titles they have worked on:

Panic Button: Doom, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein II, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Apex Legends, Rocket League, Warframe

Saber Interactive: Witcher 3, Crysis Remastered Trilogy, World War Z, Kingdom Come Deliverance

Virtuos: Starlink, Dark Souls, LA Noire, Bioshock trilogy, Dying Light, Nier Automata

Rebellion North: Sniper Elite 2/3/4, Zombie Army Trilogy, Zombie Army 4, Strange Brigade

Feral Interactive: Alien Isolation, GRID Autosport, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris

QLOC: Hellblade, Dragon's Dogma, Plants vs Zombies Battle for Neighbourville

Iron Galaxy: Skyrim, Dauntless, Diablo III, Overwatch

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My gut vote was Saber because of the Witcher. But I honestly think it’s Virtuous. Dark Souls’ compressed audio is a shame but otherwise it’s a great port. And though the game turned out to be just okay, the Starlink port is straight up magic. For what that game is, I don’t understand how it runs as well as it does. The Bioshock ports are great, and NieR is another one that I didn’t care for as much as other people do but there’s no arguing it runs amazingly well.

Panic Button was another obvious consideration, but honestly I think their work peaked with Doom. That’s a great port that nothing that came after it could live up to.
 
They're all pretty impressive studios but of all those listed, Virtuous takes it for me. If you'd have told me (post Doom 2016) that Automata would be playable on my Lite and actually run competently I'd have scoffed, or at least assumed there'd be more of a trade off.
 
Saber interactive, virtuous and panic button.

Like Witcher 3 is so surprisingly good.

Doom and Doom eternal are fantastic port.

Despite that Virtous takes the cake for the best, since Bioshock trilogy, dying light and Nier automata are in my opinion the most faithful.

Overall I’m excited seeing all these porting company, especially the good ones port games for the Switch 2, since we might see ports better than the originals.
 
Alien Isolation is probably the most impressive Switch port I’ve seen. It’s a tremendous technical effort but it’s also one of the most artful nipping and tucking, with Feral Interactive basically finding free performance by tweaking setting where the art style suffers nearly not at all.

That would be enough to put Feral Interactive at the top of the list, but you add Grid Autosport, and I think they’re the GOAT
 
Saber gets my vote. Everybody will talk about Switcher 3 (rightfully so, mind you) but that they did with the Crysis remasters is nothing short of incredible. Crysis 3 straight up looks like a PS4 game. It's not like they ported the Xbox 360 versions and called it a day either; these are the full fat, stunning remasters made to work on Switch. They even eventually patched the Switch version of Crysis 1 to give it SVOGI! The Kingdom Come port is good for what it is too - it even has visual features not present on the XBO/PS4 version - but I think it's the worst of their big ports. Part of that is that KC: Deliverance is a bit of a tough game to run compared to the others.

Virtuous gets a very close second place for their work on Alien Isolation, Grid Autosport, and Nier: Automata. Automata is a great port of a game that is such a technical nightmare that it shouldn't have been able to run on Switch, and Alien Isolation is arguably the best console version thanks to a newer anti-aliasing solution increasing image quality. Grid Autosport is the best looking racing game on Switch that doesn't have to do with Mario. Panic Button does great work too, but idk something about their ports feels... too compromised? Not sure what it is.
 
I'm playing KCR on Switch right now and yeah, Saber are truly magicians. They ported more games than any other port studio on Switch. And unlike Panic Button and Virtuos they're still going on.

Next one should be QLOC. Everything they brought felt magical. I still couldn't believe that PvZ game on my Switch screen. Both that and Hellblade make it feel like a portable PS4.
 
All of these studios deserve massive props.

With Panic Button being located in Austin, Texas, they'd make for a good support studio if ever Retro Studios need some extra hands on deck.
 
It's Moon Studios. Them getting Will of the Wisps running at 60fps while being the best looking game on Switch is magic.
But Saber considering the amount of demanding games which are also quality ports would be a close second.
 
I'm playing Wolfenstein 2 on Switch right now and it's insane that it runs and looks so good. Yeah the textures are somehow blurry, but it legit looks amazing for a 2017 tablet. Doom Eternal was also insane on Switch.
So I voted for Panic Room.
 
Panic Button got Warframe running on Switch. Freaking Warframe. It's the worst looking version, but it's still freaking Warframe. The installation's also like a quarter the size of the PC version, it's nuts.
 
Saber, no doubt. Followed by Panic Button and Virtuous. Not only The Witcher and the Crysis Trilogy (which looks miles better than the 360/PS3 versions), but also Kingdom Come, which even has features absent on the PS4/One releases.

I would also add Turn Me Up. Tony Hawks, Borderlands and It Tales Two are amazing on Switch. And I can see the effort behind the Arkham Trilogy, even counting Knight.
 
I always use Doom and Doom Eternal as the examples when someone says that a game has poor performance on Switch because of the "weak hardware" (Grime fanboys, looking at you), so I voted for Panic Button.
 
Toughie. I'd say Panic Button.

I do want to shout out Iron Galaxy for their incredible Diablo 3 port though. I know D3 is a fairly old game at this point compared to many of the miracle ports on the system, but it's rare that a non-indie game's Switch port is my favourite version of a game.
 
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Very close competition but I'm going with Panic Button since that's the one I played the most games from. Warframe is honestly shocking how good it looks and how many taxing and complex visual effects are present. Doom Eternal looks amazing too and is a hell of a complex game. Wolfenstein II really felt like I was playing on a PS4 handheld.
 
Not really technically impressive considering most of their (excellent) ports are games from the 90s, but I do want to give special mention to Nightdive for doing everything they possibly can with all their ports on Switch. Some of Quake's new effects and new levels (which had a much higher poly count) had some hitches on Switch probably from maxing out the resolution, but they did everything I can possibly think of with the ports I have tried out. They put Mouse + Keyboard support on Switch! They included the N64 versions of Quake 1 and 2, there's online crossplay, and usually a buttload of other features, usually with new levels or enhanced visuals. They are the ultimate "because they can" remaster studio in my eyes.

Admittedly I have not bought all their remasters on Switch, because I have a PC, but I think their love and care for every version is just incredible. They made Quake 2 incredible and that alone is commendable.
 
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Hellblade, Sniper Elite 4/Zombie Army 4, Doom and Alien Isolation are excellent ports. Especially Hellblade that was a graphical showcase on other platforms and looks almost as good on Switch and is graphically/technically one of the most impressive ports for Switch.
 
Nothing for me has come close to booting up The Witcher III on Switch and realizing Saber had managed to not only get the whole game up and running, but that it had all the vegetation, environmental and character details to still look suitably Witchery.

Absolutely staggering port.
 
Doom perked "your Switch can run this game" for me.
After that, it wearing off, so I say Panic Button.
 
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I don't think Panic button has done anything recently on the Switch except for continuing to support the live service games they were part of. I hope they are gearing up for Switch 2
 
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Rebellion getting Sniper Elite 4 in particular to run and look as well as it does is still so impressive to me. Panic Button and Saber Interactive both have a lot of really good works of their own, too
 
Elementary said:
Panic Button got Warframe running on Switch. Freaking Warframe. It's the worst looking version, but it's still freaking Warframe. The installation's also like a quarter the size of the PC version, it's nuts.
Click to expand...

Warframe looks great on Switch, even if it is the worst looking, incidentally. Had a great time with it.
 
Panic Button, but only just. It does not take away from the other teams that have done such tremendous Switch conversions. Hell, we know that the Switch CAN in fact run Crysis.

For Panic Button though, they as far as I can remember started the whole “impossible” port on Switch with both Doom 2016. I think that opened the floodgates for other teams to think, “Hey we can do this too!” And due to the hardware being modern for what it was, it allowed it to punch above its weight among the giants.

For Panic Button, playing both Doom 2016, and Doom Eternal on the little Switch was amaze balls to me, and still is to this day. They also did the rather underrated Doom 3 BFG Edition conversion, which again, also good, though it does lack gyro aiming unfortunately.
 
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