DOOM Eternal is undeniably one of the Switch’s more impressive gates. Used by port specialists Panic Button, the game runs successfully at a solid 30 frames per second. Compared to the PS4 and Xbox One editions, however, it took a significant visual hit.
As part of this performance compromise, scenes were also affected, limited on the Switch by 20 frames per second. In an interview with Digital Foundry, Panic Button chief engineer Travis Archer discussed why these compromises were made, and confirmed:
As is typical of most games, the scenes are sometimes the most graphically intense scenes in the game – lots of dynamic lights, lots of shadows, lots of animated complex geometry on the screen, and in this case it was not important for us to lose that detail for the cutscenes. . It̵
7;s like a big payout moment. It should look very cool, and we decided that it was better to run with a higher resolution in this case because it did not affect the gameplay – it does not affect your ability to move around the game when you are in the middle of a cutscene . It was less critical.
Now, as for the end result, I think there are still improvements we can make in relation to these cutting scenes, and we intend to make some improvements in the cutting screens to improve the performance of these. But it was the decision mainly based on how high the quality line is for these scenes.
You can watch the entire hour-long video interview above, which provides some exciting insight into how Panic Button got DOOM Evinner’s “impossible” port. Digital Foundry previously released an overview of Eternal’s 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 Switch port 8/10 stars.
Have you purchased DOOM Eternal on Switch? Do you want Panic Button to handle other games? Share your thoughts below.