One of the biggest and most surprising third party titles to come to the Switch this year is Bethesda’s Skyrim. We all know how huge Skyrim’s content is with its open world and vast gameplay and yet Bethesda and Nintendo were able to find a way to fit all that content on the Switch.
As Bethesda’s tribute to the Nintendo console, they have hidden three Zelda themed items in the Switch version, which are easy to find even if you don’t own any amiibo. The game includes the iconic Champion’s Tunic, Hylian Shield, and Master Sword so we can cosplay as Link as we traverse in the land of Tamriel, as was showcased in the E3 trailer presented by Bethesda posted above.
If you don’t want to find these hidden items in-game, you can easily get them by tapping any amiibo from any Legend of Zelda game on your Switch. This won’t be instant though, as you won’t always get the three Zelda themed items and you can only use each amiibo once per game.
Skyrim on the Switch is awesome and is a good way to encourage other third parties to develop for the Switch (check out our review of Doom for the Switch). However, due to the limitations of the hardware, compromises have to be made. For example, while the Switch is docked in your TV, the game operates at a native resolution of 1600 x 900 however, when you switch to the handheld mode, the game scales down to a 896 x 720 which is 70 percent of the native pixel count. Check out the complete test made by Polygon here.
PC players of the game won’t be pleased with this version since mods will not be supported at launch. It is unknown whether mods will ever be supported on the Switch but it is highly unlikely, even though it's Xbox One and PS4 counterparts had a somewhat limited mod support. This is the price the game has to pay for portability, so if being able to play Skyrim on the go is your top priority, you’ll surely find Skyrim for the Switch impressive enough.
If you're still unsure on how the game would look like on the Switch, check out this five minute gameplay video. Skyrim for the Nintendo Switch is available for $60 on the Eshop or at any of your favorite game stores.
Will you be playing Skyrim on the go? Or are the limitations of the Switch a deal breaker for you?
