- Bethesda’s Matt Carofano discusses the Switch 2 port of Skyrim
- Speaking to Nintendo Life, he says the porting process was “very easy.”
- Skyrim’s Switch 2 port is now available for $59.99 / £52.99
Yes, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is the gift that keeps on giving. Or rather, the game that keeps coming out; this time on Nintendo Switch 2.
Shadowdropped on the system by Bethesda, which traditionally loves shadowdrops (see The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered from the beginning of this year), Skyrim is a game that has a reputation for inevitably happening to absolutely everything. Then again, it doesn’t seem like the Switch 2 version required that much work.
In an interview with Nintendo Life, Matt Carofano – creative director of the Switch 2 port and lead artist of Skyrim original version – discussed the process of bringing the beloved RPG to Nintendo’s handheld platform.
“It’s really simple,” Carofano said of the re-release process and the collaboration with Nintendo. “We’re big fans of Nintendo, we love working with them and bringing our games to their consoles. And since there’s a new console, it’s ‘Hey, let’s bring one of our most beloved games back to the Switch 2 and see how we can improve it and make it the best experience for that console.’
He continued: “We had already done the version for the Switch, so it was a matter of going back to that and making improvements to it. So it was a really simple development process and actually quite quick in terms of turnaround.”
As for the qualities of the port, Carofano said, “A lot of it was just focused on exploiting the new hardware. We can use DLSS now and get better resolution, better performance and the game loads faster. Switch 2 has the Joy-Con 2 controllers that allow you to use mouse controls, so we added that.
“A lot of these questions simply boil down to, ‘How can we take advantage of Switch 2?’ What can she do? And [how can we] give players the best version of Skyrim for this console?'”
Of course, the reissue memes are lost to us on Carofano; even he sees the humor in constantly bringing this 13-year-old game back into modern conversation.
“It’s a bit of a joke at this point how often we release Skyrim,” he said, “but it’s a great game. We want everyone to be able to play it in the best way possible.”
For me personally, $59.99/£52.99 is a bit expensive for a modern version of Skyrim. When it’s readily available on other platforms – with mod support – for much less, it’s hard to justify picking it up, even with the benefits of portable play. That said, if its future discounts on Switch 2 are as good as they are on other systems, well, let’s just say I’m not entirely immune to the charms of Tamriel’s wintry north.
The best portable game consoles for every budget
Follow TechRadar on Google News And add us as your favorite source to get our news, reviews and expert opinions in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp Also.
