Getting the chance to look at Resident Evil Requiem on the Nintendo Switch 2 afforded me an opportunity to do something I almost never do—write a completely objective review. Since CGM’s Marcus Kenneth handled the hard work of actually reviewing the game—and doing a bang-up job, if I do say so myself—I thought I would take a crack at the far easier job of telling you how it handles on the Nintendo Switch 2.
It was something I was actually quite curious about since, while it’s fair to say Nintendo Switch 2 is a pretty competent system, that’s also a fairly easy sell when your tentpoles are games like Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Tennis Fever. For a game that’s meant to be on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S to also be on the Switch 2, clearly some serious sacrifices had to be made. Well, I’m pleased to say: a lot less than you’d think.
To begin, Resident Evil Requiem looks great on the Nintendo Switch 2 both on and off the dock. I was pretty amazed when I booted the game up on the handheld to see it running at a pretty consistent 60 fps in what looked like 1080p. There were a few moments of framerate chug, but they were minimal and dissipated pretty quickly—probably a case of the game loading in room textures and objects on the fly. Other, more chaotic Leon fights saw a small amount of slowdown as well, but again, it usually cleared up pretty quickly
“I was pretty amazed when I booted the game up on the handheld to see it running at a pretty consistent 60 fps in what looked like 1080p.”
You can see where some small tweaks were made—Grace’s hair is a little stiffer than it is in the other console versions, and certain textures like writing on signs or documents take a bit of a resolution dip. However, this is far more noticeable on handheld, as once you play the system on the dock, Resident Evil Requiem kicks up to 4K and goes some way toward covering up those small corner cuts.
However, character models maintain their high graphical fidelity and look great in both cutscenes and gameplay. The new zombies are intimidating and maintain the same level of visual gore as their counterparts. I kind of expected some of the blood spatter to be toned down to optimize performance, but no. Zombies paint the walls in a really believable way, and it really feels like the attention to detail hasn’t needed to be sacrificed.
And where Resident Evil Requiem needed to maintain the integrity of its foundation, particularly in its lighting, atmosphere and environmental design, it absolutely crushed it on the Nintendo Switch 2. In a lot of ways, I was reminded of the first time I played Resident Evil Revelations on the Nintendo 3DS. I couldn’t believe something so graphically impressive and genuinely tense was made possible on a Nintendo handheld—especially one that’s still underpowered compared to its competition.
“Where Resident Evil Requiem needed to maintain the integrity of its foundation, particularly in its lighting, atmosphere and environmental design, it absolutely crushed it on the Nintendo Switch 2.”
Although it’s a little disappointing to me that Resident Evil Requiem doesn’t really take advantage of the Nintendo Switch 2 in any meaningful way. Despite recommending that half the game be played in first-person (Grace’s segments) and offering first and third-person cameras for both characters, the game doesn’t utilize mouse controls. There’s no touchscreen control for the inventory screen, and while the game does have Gyro control for aiming, it restricts it to ROLL, so it’s functionally useless when trying to aim horizontally in handheld.
However, despite some minor sacrifices, Resident Evil Requiem is a pretty impressive game on the Nintendo Switch 2. It certainly feels like we’ve come a long way since the Cloud Only versions of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Village, to a game that feels like a real proving ground of what the Nintendo Switch 2 is actually capable of.
