Warface Nintendo Switch Review

"Rough FPS"

Multiplayer

February 22, 2020 at 8:16pm
By Jason Stettner

This is a multiplayer free to play shooter that has been around for a number of years on multiple platforms, and now has been ported over to the Nintendo Switch. This is actually a fairly expansive title at this point, since it still receives updates and content drops.

With that, there are over fifty multiplayer PVP maps and a wide number of PVE options. When it does come to tactical PVE you’re able to take on Raids as a group in coop. These are linear, and fairly challenging missions that provide a decent amount of gameplay time while also requiring some teamwork in order to succeed.

There is a good selection of environments to battle through together, though there’s not really much of a narrative there. It can be annoying to fail as you’ll have to restart it all, and the token you have to use to enter Raids is basically wasted. If the raids are a bit much, the initial offerings available are Special Operations which contain more controlled smaller missions to take on as a group. In general this area of the game is alright, but nothing too enticing to check out.

The highlight of this experience is a the multiplayer aspect. You’ll face off with others in modes ranging from Deathmatch to more objective based options. I really enjoy Storm mode which is a more tiered objective mode like Battlefield’s Rush, but they have bomb planting and a few other modes to enjoy. A little bit of variation for everyone, at the same time not a whole lot of options as they keep players funneled. It’s also a bit annoying that lobbies are rolling across game types as you may play Storm and end up in a deathmatch lobby afterwards.

Gameplay

Being a free to play title you’ll be faced with a number of microtransactions. You’ll be able to rent weapons, and that leads into the option to purchase them outside of the in-game experience. This is similar when it comes to the gear area. There are four classes present in the game that each fill a particular niche. You need to play their tutorials to get them. It can be quite coop focused so it’s good to have a variety on your team. Medics will heal, engineers grant armor to players and so forth with the classes each doing something helpful.

When it comes to general play this does feel rather aged and sluggish. It’s particularly rough on the Nintendo Switch as it has some bad performance at times and very murky visuals. It hits 720p at 30fps when it’s docked and on the go it only gets to 540p. Aside from drops in performance, the textures can be very muddy.

The character models look fine, as do the weapons but the environments definitely take a severe hit. Texture loading, and again some areas where it seems like textures don’t load in at all. At the same time, somewhat good to even have this running on the platform. I find that this is a more hardcore shooter in that death will hit you fast. The snipers are quite powerful as well. Be wary of spawning, as you’ll often get trapped.

The servers connection could be better, sometimes you’d have to reload a lobby multiple times as people joined and this game can be quite slow to load. I do like the coop options in games, and how you can traverse. At the same time maps feel very linear with few options to move around, and not great to look at. There is a good variety of the multiplayer maps, with decent changes in how the layouts are presented. It’s definitely a game of its time, that’s mostly reflected in the somewhat stupid AI you face and the very bland sort of world you embrace. Still, it hits a niche on the platform.

The Conclusion

Warface Nintendo Switch fills the mature competitive shooter niche that the platform has had empty since release, and does so with a very aged free to play option.

I really think this is a good title for the platform, at the same time it’s very much showing its age. I know players there will enjoy it, and yes the game can be fun. At the same time it has some performance issues, connection problems and it looks awful. Just bland and so bad when you’re running around.

I will note that it has gyro controls for those that use them, but I turned them off as soon as possible. There’s a lot of content here, it does run and it’s a free to play. It’s nice to have a cooperative focus for a shooter title, and I don’t think there’s a lot of competition for this game on the platform.

Read our Overwatch Nintendo Switch Review
View our Warface Hub

Warface Review on Nintendo Switch

Rating Overall: 5.0