DOOM Eternal it is undeniably one of the most impressive ports on the Switch. Provided by Panic Button port specialists, the game runs successfully at 30 frames per second. However, compared to the PS4 and Xbox One editions, it had significant visual success.
As part of this performance compromise, cut scenes, limited to Switch at 20 frames per second, were also affected. Speaking to Digital Foundry, Panic Button chief engineer Travis Archer discussed why these commitments were made, confirming:
As is typical of most games, the cut scenes are sometimes the most graphically intense scenes in the game: lots of dynamic lights, lots of shadows, lots of complex animated geometry on the screen, so in this case, the importance for to us I did not miss this detail for the cut scenes. It’s like it’s a great rewarding moment. It is supposed to look fantastic and we decided that in this case it was better to run at a higher resolution because it did not affect the game mode; it doesn’t affect your ability to move smoothly through the game when you’re in the middle of a cut scene. He was less critical.
Now, as for the end result, I think there are still improvements we can make to these cutting scenes, and we intend to make some improvements to the cutting scenes to improve their performance. But this was the decision mainly based on the high quality of the bar for these scenes.
You can watch the full-hour video interview above, which offers some intriguing insights into how Panic Button got the “impossible” port of DOOM Eternal. Digital Foundry previously released a breakdown of Eternal technology last month, confirming improved performance Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
If you are curious to know more, you can always check out our own review, where we awarded the 8/10 star Switch port.
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