Back successful 2018, the Switch received 1 of its worst and astir unplayable ports successful the console’s history, a singular favoritism fixed however galore unsmooth games are connected the platform. You mightiness cognize it, arsenic it’s a beauteous fashionable first-person open-world endurance simulator called Ark: Survival Evolved. Now 4 years aft its archetypal release, Ark has a caller Switch larboard utilizing a newer mentation of Unreal and it mightiness beryllium 1 of the astir awesome upgrades to a Switch crippled I’ve ever seen.

There person been immoderate occurrence ports connected the Switch. Games similar The Witcher 3 and Doom 2016 not lone look bully connected the aging portable hybrid console, but besides play well, too. That’s not casual to do, caput you. The Switch is aged and not precise powerful, truthful getting modern, big, fancy-looking 3D games moving connected it is challenging. I mean, adjacent Nintendo-published games similar the caller Pokémon conflict connected it. So it’s not astonishing that for each occurrence larboard determination are a twelve bleh ports of large games. But past determination are the genuinely abysmal ports, the ones that marque you wonderment wherefore they adjacent got made. And possibly the worst of the worst is 2018’s Ark: Survival Evolved.

Ark on Switch successful 2018 wasn’t conscionable bad, it was really, truly terrible. Many websites and critics person called it 1 of, if not the, worst larboard released for Switch. It featured incredibly debased solution and a horrifically atrocious framerate, with tons of stuttering and hitching.

Even erstwhile it ran well, it looked similar shit, with tons of blurry objects and fuzzy shapes floating around. Some of these, apparently, were meant to beryllium dinosaurs oregon trees. It was hard to tell. This Digital Foundry video from 2018 is simply a large look astatine the larboard and however poorly it played. Fast guardant a fewer years aboriginal and present this period a marque caller mentation of the fashionable endurance crippled is retired connected Switch. And folks, it’s benignant of awesome however overmuch amended things are.

Eurogamer and Digital Foundry took a look astatine this caller larboard and talked to the developers down it. Apparently, the full crippled has been rebuilt from the crushed up successful Unreal 4. In fact, according to the devs, thing from the archetypal crippled remains. Instead, this larboard is based connected a newer Xbox physique of the game. New larboard developer Grove Street Games (yes, the aforesaid radical down the hated, wonky GTA Trilogy remasters from past year…) is besides utilizing dynamic solution scaling to assistance things look sharper and tally amended connected the Switch.

The caller larboard of Ark features nicer-looking shadows and little pop-in acknowledgment to caller tools disposable successful UE4. Even better, the infamously agelong loading times person been chopped down to lone astir 30 seconds. That’s inactive a lot, but see that successful the archetypal larboard it could instrumentality up to astir 3 minutes. So yeah, large improvements each around.

To beryllium clear: This is inactive a unsmooth mode to play Ark: Survival Evolved compared to much susceptible platforms. Of course, playing the crippled connected newer much almighty consoles oregon a beefy PC volition supply a overmuch amended experience. But for folks who similar portable gaming oregon who lone person a Switch, it’s bully to spot a steadfast spell backmost and walk the wealth and clip to wholly hole and regenerate a atrocious larboard with thing overmuch better. This isn’t thing you spot precise often and adjacent if the caller larboard inactive has its ain issues, the caller mentation is simply a night-and-day betterment that should beryllium applauded.

Ark: Survival Evolved - Ultimate Survivor Edition is retired present connected Switch and is disposable to erstwhile owners of the aged larboard for free. Maybe The Outer Worlds tin get a amended larboard next?