Back in 2018, the Switch received one of the worst and most complex ports in the console’s history, which is a nice distinction considering how many raw games there are on the platform. You might know it, because it is one of the very popular first-person open world survival simulator called Ark: Survival Evolved. Now four years after its initial release, Astronomy It has a new Switch port using a newer version of Unreal and it might be one of the most impressive upgrades to a Switch game I’ve ever seen.
There were some miracle outlets on the adapter. games like The Witcher 3 And the Death 2016 Not only does it look beautiful on the old handheld hybrid console, but it also plays well. This is not easy to do, keep in mind. The Switch is old and not very powerful, so running modern, big, fantasy-looking 3D games is a challenge. I mean, even games published on Nintendo are like new games Pokemon is struggling for that. So it is not surprising that for every port of miracle there are dozens of ports of big games. But then there are the really bad ports, the ones that make you wonder why they were made. And perhaps the worst of all is 2018 Ark: Survival Evolved.
Astronomy On Switch in 2018 it wasn’t just bad, it was really, really awful. many sites And the Critics have called it that One of, if not the worst, port ever released for Switch. It has an incredibly low resolution and a horribly bad frame rate, with lots of stuttering and snags.
Even when it was working fine, it looked like crap, with lots of dull objects and fuzzy shapes floating around. It looks like some of these things were supposed to be dinosaurs or trees. It was hard to tell. this is Digital Foundry Video from 2018 It’s a great look at the port and how bad it is running. Fast forward a few years later, and now this month, a brand new installment of the popular survival game is coming to Switch. Guys, it’s kind of impressive how much better things are.
Eurogamer And the Digital Foundry Take a look at this new port and talk to the developers behind it. Apparently, the entire game has been rebuilt from the ground up in Unreal 4. In fact, according to the developers, there is nothing left of the original game. Instead, this port is based on a more recent Xbox version of the game. The developer of the new port is Grove Street Games (yes, the same people behind Hated, wonky GTA trilogy Protected from last year…) It also uses dynamic resolution scaling to help things look sharper and work better on the Switch.
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The new port Astronomy It features nicer shadows and less pop thanks to the new tools available in UE4. Even better, its notoriously long loading times have been cut to just about 30 seconds. That’s still a lot, but keep in mind that on the original port it could take close to three minutes. Well, big improvements all around.
To be clear: this is still a tough way to play Ark: Survival Evolved Compared to more capable platforms. Of course, playing the game on newer, more powerful consoles or a powerful PC will provide a much better experience. But for people who prefer mobile games or who only have a Switch, it’s nice to see a publisher go back and spend the money and time to fix and replace a bad port with something much better. This isn’t something you see often, and even if the new port still has its own issues, the new version is an improvement day and night that should be applauded.
Ark: Survival Evolved – Ultimate Survivor Edition It’s out now on Switch and available to previous owners of the old port for free. Can outer worlds Can get a better port then?