Yep, it’s powered by the cloud
During today’s surprise Nintendo Direct, Nintendo dropped the bomb that Remedy’s Control was headed to the Switch. But unlike traditional games on the platform, you can’t download it, and it won’t be sold on a cart. Instead, you’ll only be able to play the game by streaming it.
Thanks to the almighty cloud and Ubitus, a company that has already enabled several cloud-powered games for the Switch, Control is playable on the Nintendo Switch. Upon starting the game, you’re presented with two options; An enhanced performance mode and an enhanced graphics mode.
First up, I fired up the performance mode so that I could see how the game played. While it looked pretty bad, it actually ran well. It was responsive, and I didn’t notice much delay. Mind you. I’m sitting on a 1GB up/down connection, thanks to Verizon’s Fios. After playing for a few minutes, I wanted to check out the enhanced graphics mode, and it didn’t turn out so well.
See the screenshot below.
Yes, that is a queue. Something that we normally see when we’re trying to log into an MMO or any game that requires us to log into a server. So, seeing this on a game that I’ve played on the PC and Xbox One X, now seeing this on the Switch and with a queue. Well, it doesn’t instill any confidence. So far, I’ve been waiting 15 minutes to try the enhanced graphics mode out.
Update: I finally was able to try the enhanced graphics mode, and it looked exactly like the enhanced performance mode, except that it ran worse. I’m not making this up. Wanting to confirm this, I attempted to go back to the enhanced performance mode and was greeted with the message that I had to purchase an Access Pass on the eShop. Which happens to be priced at $40 USD.
Turns out, there’s a 5 minute limit for this demo. Surpassing that, you’ll need the Access Pass.
A Nintendo Account is required to access the cloud service. To access the game after the free trial, this free launcher application and the purchasable Access Pass are required. Pricing can be found on the Nintendo eShop page for the Access Pass once the 5 minute trial has been successfully completed.
While it’s a free download, you can’t do much of anything. For a demo, this is very lacking and has already soiled any excitement (not that I had any to start with) of Control being available on the Switch.
This begs to ask if this is how companies are looking to get games that require more power than the Switch can afford, is it worth it. That said, this isn’t the first game to use the cloud to power a game on the Switch. We’ve already seen a version of Sega’s Phantasy Star Online and Resident Evil 7, both powered by the cloud, thanks to the efforts of Ubitus.
More on this as it develops…
Control is currently available on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
