When we reviewed the Witcher 3’s Switch port late last year it was a cause for celebration. Cramming the entire adventure onto a cartridge was a real technical feat, the graphical nips and tucks were appropriate to the platform and the fact is played at all was something of a miracle. That said, there were still some key aspects missing we would have loved to have seen included in the port and what we wanted to see was the ability to port saves between PC and Switch – a feature of Divinity Original Sin 2 that played out beautifully on the Nintendo hybrid. The good news is that patch 3.6 for Switch adds this must-have feature – and a whole lot more.
In addition to the cross-save support, performance optimisations and additional graphics options are implemented, while touch controls make the cut – mainly for menu navigation. However, the big breakthrough is indeed the cross-save option and it works pretty much exactly as you’d imagine. You get a choice of Steam and GOG stores on the main menu and from there, you sign into your account of choice through the Switch browser, where you can select which saves to download. It’s worth stressing you must own all DLCs and extras installed on PC for it to work properly but this is the only real catch. Otherwise it’s seamless and operates exactly as it should.
Cross save support is a game-changer. What distinguishes the Switch version is the ability to take it anywhere – but obviously, this comes at a cost to performance and graphical quality. So why not play the game on the go on Switch, while enjoying a visually richer experience at home on PC? Patch 3.6 delivers this option – the best of both worlds.
After cross-save support, improved image quality is the next item on the list of improvements I’d love to see and yes, the game looks better now, up to a point. Loading up the game on default visual settings, the upgrade in image quality certainly isn’t obvious or noticeable. Compared old captures to new, I’ve spotted no major changes to the way the dynamic resolution scaling solution works It’s always in flux from one second to the next and so exact measurements aren’t possible but the perceptible result isn’t far removed from what we had before. Where there is an upgrade, however, is in the arrival of more option-heavy graphics menus. Now there’s room for a little DIY tweaking to the way the base image is presented with a range of options to dig into.