Apex Legends deemed “unplayable” on Nintendo Switch by disappointed fans

Andrew Highton
apex legends switch

After a long wait, Apex Legends is now available to play on the highly-successful Nintendo Switch. However, early indications suggest that the port doesn’t perform as well as expected and has been called “unplayable” by users.

Apex Legends has enjoyed a profitable two years since the game released as a free-to-play battle royale shooter on consoles and PC. Millions of players have duked it out in order to be crowned Champion of the Arena.

Now, two years after its subsequent release, Apex Legends has finally made its debut on Nintendo’s dual-function system as we barrel towards the beginning of Season 9. Whether played handheld or docked and hooked up to a TV, fans of Respawn’s frenetic battle royale offering can enjoy the game wherever.

But it seems like the game presented on the portable console doesn’t quite live up to the glorious reputation upheld on powerful hardware like the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

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One of the game’s unofficial Reddit pages has a subreddit detailing the Switch version and any follow-up feedback during the game’s initial launch period.

Reddit user re-goddamn-loading commented on the state of the game and has received nearly 200 upvotes for their comment saying, “Whew lad. I’m not much of a stickler when it comes to graphics or framerate. But handheld mode is unplayable lol. It’s a blurry low frame mess hahaha. It made me feel like I needed new glasses trying to track opponents.”

In a direct response to this comment, another Apex Legends player, this time on the Switch Lite commented saying, “Yeah, Apex Legends on a Switch Lite, it’s unplayable.”

These two comments aren’t just isolated thoughts either as the thread is full of various comments and complaints towards the inferior version of Apex Legends.

jack_gllghr broke down some of the key components of the performance, discussing its shortcomings and how the game could be improved moving forward: “One match done and I’m disappointed, unfortunately. The UI is scaled up too much, the blur makes it really hard to see distant players, and the gyro aiming has horizontal aiming on the wrong axis (turn like a steering wheel). It’s fine for separate joy cons, but in portable, it should yaw instead of roll.”

Some game launches can be rocky ones, particularly for a port, and it seems like Apex Legends has succumbed to this common trait.

Given that the Respawn is currently well into testing for Apex Legends mobile and preparing a big patch with bug fixes, it’s understandable if they have a lot on their plate and take some time to address, and fix, these issues.

Image credits: Respawn Entertainment

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A content creator for Charlie INTEL / Dexerto that earned a degree, wrote for PlusXP, Twinfinite, and Keengamer, before finally securing his dream job of being a professional video game writer. When not writing about games, he's very busy playing every game in existence and adding to his 11,000+ PlayStation Trophies and 150+ Platinums. You can contact him at [email protected].