I’ve played Resident Evil about as much as any franchise in my life, which means I’ve replayed all of them many times over.
As you may imagine, I jumped at the opportunity for more when Capcom wished to send me early access codes to review the Switch 2 versions of Resident Evil’s excellent remake trilogy, and I’m happy to say that these games all look and run fantastically on Nintendo’s handheld hybrid console.
Resident Evil 4: Gold Edition, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 2: Deluxe Edition are all exemplary on the Switch 2 hardware, which shouldn’t be surprising anymore. Nintendo’s new console has shown it can stand toe-to-toe as a machine that plays all sorts of third-party titles, which is a far departure from the Switch 1.
Having the remake trilogy on Switch 2 now means all mainline Resident Evil titles are here on Switch 2, and that includes Resident Evil Requiem and next year’s Resident Evil Veronica, too. The ability to take these classics on the go just makes it that much more impressive, because there’s not much fidelity loss in handheld mode at all.
The best way to play these games will still be on a suped-up gaming PC or even a PS5 Pro, but having the franchise back on Nintendo and looking this good was unheard of just a few years ago. I’m of the belief that Nintendo has been home to some of the franchise’s best moments, including the original RE1 remake and original Resident Evil 4 on GameCube, the light-gun Chronicles games on Wii, and even Resident Evil Revelations on 3DS. It feels good to have them back on Nintendo again.
Jumping back into Raccoon City and dueling with Ganados all over again on the Switch 2 felt really smooth, especially with the Pro Controller. Playing in handheld mode is a bit different and less enjoyable, as I prefer a meatier grip when it comes to playing third-person shooters, but it’s still worth it.
There’s definitely a bit less visual fidelity when it comes to certain textures, but unless you’re playing it side-by-side with the PC or even the Xbox Series X version, you shouldn’t be able to tell too much of a difference. The Switch 2 versions offer HDR and motion controls on top of what you may already expect, too, so if you feel like it, you can even use the JoyCons to gun down zombies (not my cup of tea, personally) to your heart’s content. The most important thing, to me, is that the games feel smooth at a solid 60 FPS with DLSS helping out with upscaling. They look and play great, as they should.
All three games drop on the Switch 2 on Oct. 16, and they are discounted for the first few weeks: RE4 is 20 percent off ($39.99), RE3 is 33 percent off ($19.79), and RE2 is 25 percent off ($29.99), so I can wholly recommend picking these up if you haven’t played them already (and even still if you already have).
All copies of the three Switch 2 games were provided by Capcom for review.
