The Switch 2 Is My Favorite Way to Play Cyberpunk 2077, and It’s Not Just Mouse Controls

I’ve tested Cyberpunk 2077 on so many different systems, handhelds, and PCs, you would assume the word “choom” would send me into a state of cyberpsychosis. But I’m midway through yet another playthrough of the game on Switch 2, and I can already tell this will be the first system I use to finally complete the game since I last played it in 2020. The version of Cyberpunk tuned for Nintendo’s new handheld is the most seamless and comfortable edition made for consoles that still showcases the game’s beautiful environments.

You can play CD Projekt Red’s open-world cyber ninja simulator on either Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 with solid visual fidelity at 60 frames per second in “performance” mode, but it won’t ever be as fluid a playable experience as it is on Switch 2. Yes, it’s handy to take your console on the go without having to finagle any streaming over Wi-Fi, but when docked, the experience is still better due to tighter controls. By default and with two Joy-Con 2 controllers, Cyberpunk 2077 offers joystick plus gyro controls for aiming. There’s a separate option you can turn on to enable Joy-Con 2 mouse mode. Either way, you can achieve better pinpoint-accurate gunplay than you can with thumbsticks. I could sit back on the couch and enjoy the game without hunching over a keyboard and mouse and still feel like I wasn’t missing out on its high-octane, spectacle-fueled combat systems.

In about 15 hours of gameplay, I tried both control sets and played in handheld mode as well. The mouse controls are very accurate, but the issue is always finding a comfortable position to rest your palm. My hand started cramping rather fast as I tried it on the couch cushion next to me or a chair’s armrest. I was using the Killswitch case grip made by Dbrand, which made it far more ergonomic for mouse controls. The issue is how often you need to roll your hand to press face buttons for actions and menus. On the flip side, I found that the upgraded gyros on the Switch 2 are so clean, I was able to line up headshots with such ease I would rarely swap to mouse.

The game also supports hand-wavy controls for reloading weapons or swinging melee weapons. I found these could feel far too much like the original Wii—where I would sweep my controller at open air and pray that my character performed the action I wanted. I kept to buttons and found it to be a much tighter experience. I also wish CD Projekt Red allowed me to keep both gyro/thumbstick and mouse controls on at the same time. If you enable mouse controls, you disable thumbsticks and gyros. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond promises to allow players to swap from thumbsticks to mouse just by plopping their controller on a surface. Something like that for Cyberpunk 2077 would go a long way to helping players avoid wrist pain.

Cyberpunk 2077 plays at 1080p resolution in both handheld mode and when docked. Either way, you can expect it to get between 30 and 40 fps under “quality” graphics settings, even during an intense gunfight. That’s equivalent to what you may get on a Steam Deck, though I found the performance to be more consistent on Switch 2. I experienced some frame rate dips when driving in third person in dense environments (first-person mode aids frame rates by taking up a portion of the screen with the players’ gun or car models—a longtime performance trick used by most first-person shooters). Any occasional performance hitching wasn’t enough to distract from the game’s visuals. If you’re somebody who absolutely demands 60 fps from every game they play, you’re not going to find that experience with Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2.

There are occasional visual glitches. On complicated textures like rugs or fabric, the game rendered odd kaleidoscope effects that could become distracting in cutscenes. This is likely due to the use of Nvidia’s DLSS. The Nintendo Switch 2 uses a custom Nvidia-made chip, and this means it can run AI upscaling to take a frame rendered at 720p and massage it to look like it’s 1080p. The most recent version of Nvidia’s upscaler, DLSS 4, is normally devoid of these glitches. The Switch 2’s graphics processor is essentially equivalent to Nvidia’s Ampere microarchitecture built close to five years ago, though Nvidia has obviously fine-tuned the system-on-chip (SoC) for Nintendo’s hardware specs. This allows for some ray tracing lighting effects, though it can’t ever be as punch-to-the-face spectacular as it can be on an ultra-expensive PC running with path tracing effects.

The fact that we’re still talking about Cyberpunk 2077 as a high bar for graphically demanding games five years after launch is a testament to just how beautiful—and intensive—the game can be. What gets lost in the obsession with performance is just how rich of a world CD Projekt Red established for the game. It’s a game where the environment informs the story. Every bag of trash dumped on the side of the road speaks to a world that has become so corporatized there are no social services as simple as garbage pickup available to all but the wealthy. The player can climb to the top of an overlooking skyscraper and watch the evening haze choke Night City and all its inhabitants in a thick gloom.

You need some amount of visual fidelity to represent that, and the Switch 2 version of Cyberpunk 2077 maintains that atmosphere. The first time I played the game shortly after launch, I ran through the full 60 hours in a state that would better be described as an interactive slideshow. The game was so bugged I sometimes felt like my PC was infected with an in-game neurovirus. But I still loved it for the wonderful, human-centric story it told—of characters who felt real and personable and themes of corporate oppression that feel more pertinent today than they did in 2020.

Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews

Entertainment blogs & Forums