Ark: Survival Evolved on Switch is cut back to the absolute barebones

Nintendo's Switch has been a genuine surprise - a hybrid console based on a mobile chipset that has delivered some remarkable tech showcases: the Doom 2016 port was a mini-revelation while the Wolfenstein 2 follow-up was even more mind-blowing. But these were streamlined 60fps games pared back to 30fps, and built around an eminently scalable engine - a state of affairs that doesn't fully apply to Studio Wildcard's Ark: Survival Evolved, which seems to have been dragged kicking and screaming onto the Switch hardware with some good - and some very bad - results.

We don't envy the developers tasked with bringing Ark over to the Switch - the game has never run particularly well, with even the six teraflop Xbox One X GPU unable to bring a smooth, consistent experience to console users. The developer's solution? Cut back everything to the absolute barebones and render it at what we believe to be the lowest native resolution we've seen on a current generation video game.

Where do we begin? Most of the foliage is removed, leaving the forest areas completely devoid of detail. The jungle floor looks borderline unfinished, the lack of foliage exposing textures with a brutally low resolution. Distant LODs can no longer be considered distant with trees and other objects popping into view just before the player. Right up until they fully draw-in, you're left with low resolution billboards. It's almost as if you're stuck walking through the most distant LOD levels at almost all times.

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from Eurogamer.net https://ift.tt/2EgBcQa
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