Fans of The Witcher 3 know there's nothing more awesome than the feeling of strategically planning how to hunt monsters. Thanks to Geralt's abilities and skillset, the Witcher can easily stalk his prey and eliminate them with a combination of combat maneuvers, potions and trinkets, and Witcher Signs along the way. Moreover, The Witcher 3's compelling story and gripping narrative serve more than enough reasons for players to keep on going back to Geralt and his adventures.
Thankfully, players can bring Geralt with them as The Witcher 3 made its way for a Nintendo Switch port. However, fans may argue that The Witcher 3 for the PC remains the definitive experience — thanks to its precision controls and graphics. But which platform truly holds the most promise when it comes to telling Geralt's story?
6 Switch Works: Play The Game In A Portable, Adaptive Format
The transition of The Witcher 3 to the Switch fully supports the controller-reliant console. In fact, Switch players who already played through some action games in the title would grow familiar with The Witcher 3's Switch controls. Moreover, players who have come from The Witcher on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One may find the control scheme familiar as well.
Moreover, the added option of swapping between handheld and docked modes for the Switch allows players to both carry the game with them or just play on a bigger screen at home.
In the default handheld setting, The Witcher 3 plays on 540p. This resolution gets adjusted once the game enters docked mode, which blows out the game's graphics properly on a larger screen. Regardless of the platform, Geralt's monstrous opponents are still quite impressive.
5 PC Is King: Graphical Options Improve Immersion
Gamers have heard no shortage of praise concerning The Witcher 3's graphical prowess, with it having thoroughly set the bar for modern action titles. The game has no shortage of graphical options to tinker with, and a very high ceiling as far as potential fidelity. Good, higher-end PCs are even able to accommodate The Witcher 3 in 8K.
The result is a nearly absurd level of detail, with everything from foliage to the hair on Geralt's head coming to life with a satisfying crispness — and that's without taking things like lighting into account. These details might seem nitpicky for some players, but it's difficult to argue that anything's more satisfying than Geralt tearing through vampires in Ultra-High, 4K settings.
4 Switch Works: New Painterly Textures Add Artistic Flair
Although some sort of graphical compromise was necessary in porting it to the Switch, The Witcher 3 still manages to hold its own thanks to its unique take on the graphics. Instead of severely downgrading its graphics, The Witcher 3 port instead adapts a painterly art style to the environment. As such, the game's "downgraded" experience practically feels like it's done on purpose.
For instance, despite the lack of graphical customization options, the game does a great job accentuating small details whenever necessary and saving processing power when dealing with larger landscapes by transforming them into oil painting-esque backdrops. Fans of games with unique art styles would appreciate the kind of blend The Witcher 3 did for its Switch port. Unlike the realistic take of its PC counterpart, fans of The Witcher 3 will feel as though they're in a new world with new visuals in the Switch version.
3 PC Is King: The Controls Are More Precise
The PC iteration's use of the mouse and keyboard helps a lot in terms of precise and careful combat. The game uses familiar keyboard mechanics to move, jump, and roll (Shift, Space) and intuitively uses the keyboard to quickly navigate through gameplay options. In turn, Item Interaction (E), Inventory (I), and even the World Map (M) take familiar keyboard controls that other games also use.
Meanwhile, players get into combat seamlessly with mouse-centric combat (Left Mouse to Attack, Right Mouse to Counter). Even Witcher abilities like Witcher Senses and Sign-casting have easy-to-access controls. In turn, players can have Geralt tearing through opponents with more precise combos.
2 Switch Works: The Port Adds Great Quality-Of-Life Features
Like other successful Switch ports, The Witcher 3 for the Switch builds upon the original release of the title. In turn, CD Projekt Red added some quality-of-life features to better accommodate the Switch's hardware. Fans can tweak these settings to make their experience more comfortable, which is especially crucial for a portable setup. For instance, the game finally adds the option for automatic finishers, as well as sword drawing/sheathing.
Moreover, the game includes a graphical update to remove the "fish-eye" effect of toggling Witcher Senses. Gameplay-wise, the game also allows players to toggle the action log, enemy upscaling, and even NPC chatter. In the base game, players needed patches to add some of these features to the original The Witcher 3 release. CD Projekt Red has intuitively added these options to the Switch port.
1 PC Is King: Deep Customization With Modded Content
Finally, we arrive at the crux of most PC versus console debates. Granted, a lot of The Witcher 3 mods actually help the game add a more realistic flair to the game's visuals and gameplay — such as slow-motion combat and more loot, among others. However, some fans go absolutely wild with mods that make The Witcher 3 outright entertaining.
For instance, some mods let chickens have helmets, face fusions, and even funny animations. As with most active and vibrant modding communities, the sky's the limit — and that's only if the modders choose to stop there.