Doom's Switch port is as much gory fun as you remember - with one tiny problem

Bethesda has already made it clear that it has a crush on the Nintendo Switch with the announcement on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the handheld - but the news that Doom and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus are also coming to Switch is basically a marriage proposal. Just look at these screens, which are from the Switch version but could easily be mistaken for PS4 or Xbox One shots.

Of course, we wouldn't trick you like that. I got a quick hands-on with Doom on Switch, and you know what? It works. The shooting is just as punchy, the demons just as hellish, the Glory Kills just as gory. That early impression comes with two small caveats, though. We were encouraged to play using a Pro Controller, so I can't attest as to how it will feel if you prefer to be skin-to-skin with your Switch Joy-cons.

Second - and please know that I passed my most recent eye test with flying colors - the text is crazy small. Like, "What is this, a center for ants?" small. Doom is hardly heavy on lore, but even as someone who played the game on PC, I couldn't always make out what a prompt wanted me to do, or just what exactly I was upgrading in my menus. It won't be a problem if you're docking your Switch and playing on the big screen, but it definitely needs a second look if developer id Software is hoping to win over a new audience on Switch, and not go the way of the original Dead Rising's font-size follies.

Miniscule writing aside,  everything else you loved about 2016's Doom is there. The chainsaw that slides through enemies like a knife through cream cheese, the skeletal Revenant and its shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, the practically Freudian power of the Gauss Cannon.  We're also promised "classic and all-new game modes" for multiplayer - a welcome part of the Doom experience - just in case you're bored of squid ink as your Switch weapon of choice for friendly humiliation. 

Doom for Nintendo Switch will be released this year for the holidays. Nothing says Christmas like eating sugar cookies while tearing the lower jaw right off a Possessed Soldier.

Rachel Weber
Managing Editor, US

Rachel Weber is the US Managing Editor of GamesRadar+ and lives in Brooklyn, New York. She joined GamesRadar+ in 2017, revitalizing the news coverage and building new processes and strategies for the US team.