The Witcher 3 Switch Developer Details Difficult Process Of Porting To The System

While one can’t help but love the Switch, there’s quite the power gap between it and the other consoles on the market. It’s not a controversial thing to say (or maybe it is considering the audience we’re talking about, who the hell knows), but some real miracle work has been done for Nintendo’s Hybrid, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt being one of the prime examples. It was a game that even demanded quite a bit from the PS4 and Xbox One when it launched. While the Switch version ain’t the prettiest, it’s still a pretty incredible technical feat. And if you’re wondering how they did it, well, it’s your lucky day.

Saber Interactive’s Roman Lebedev gave a talk at GTC 2020 about the game aptly called The Impossible Port. In the video he gives a lengthy breakdown of how the company handled porting CD Projekt RED’s acclaimed RPG to a system well below its range. It’s quite technical, but still worth the watch. Some quick highlights are that the port took roughly 15 months, it used sound streaming tech developed for Cyberpunk 2077, and internally they called the project Switcher, which is just… adorable. You can see the full presentation through here.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC. The Switch also has cross-save with the PC version.