Have you ever thought to yourself, “I want to play Overwatch in 30 FPS, on a low resolution screen, and with super slow internet?”

Well, now you can!

For the low, low price of $39.99 (plus Nintendo’s online fees) you too can have a sub-par “on-the-go” Overwatch experience! Your portable screen will have you hunching your shoulders and craning your neck to see Overwatch in a resolution lower than your phone’s.

This game performs marginally better than a Gameboy Color with one of those squiggly lights on it!

Running Overwatch on a small 720p screen in 30 FPS is a treat you will not soon forget! On top of that, you have to aim with controls that are stiff and unwieldy, which makes the experience of “playing anywhere” even better!

Sure, you could hook it up to the TV and play with a Switch pro controller, but at that point you might as well get it on a console that runs Overwatch in 60 FPS. Let’s be honest, you bought the game on the Switch because Overwatch on-the-go sounded like a good idea, so this review doesn’t give a damn about docked mode.

The internet limitations really hurt Overwatch on the Switch

So playing Overwatch ANYWHERE is easy and fun to play, just like Blizzard’s ad claimed! Right?

WRONG!

Want to play Overwatch on your commute? You can’t! There are no offline modes in this game! To enjoy Overwatch you need to have a good wifi connection! Honestly, even a good wifi connection won’t save you from the hell that is Nintendo’s online service.

Playing Overwatch on your Switch is like playing roulette. Everytime you queue, 50% of the time you are gonna disconnect.

Nintendo’s paid internet reminds me of Cincinnati Bell’s “high speed internet” circa 2008.

When I was a kid around 2008, we finally got wifi, like two years after everyone else had it. Other than the invention of the iPhone, Wifi was the most important thing that happened to consumer technology that decade.

It was a magical time period. Sometimes we would pull as much as 1 or even 2 mbps. (Who am I kidding? We never pulled 2 mbps.) With that wifi service, we gained access to annoyingly slow internet, 24/6! (It always went down on Sundays).

Somehow, 12 years later the Switch has slower internet than Cincinnati Bell in 2008. I exaggerate, but not by as much as you would hope. The Switch’s internet is the console equivalent of when pictures used to load single pixel line by single pixel line downward.

I can’t believe they expect us to pay for Switch Online, considering how poor the service is.

How is the gameplay though?

Let’s say that you are fine with bad internet, or you have the holy grail of Switch experiences and have never had a bad experience with Nintendo’s online services.

Is the game fun to play?

Overwatch is a pretty fun game to play, but I don’t think the Switch adds anything to the experience. Everything that is not fun about the Overwatch is still there, but it runs and feels worse.

The only unique feature to the Switch port is the motion controls.

If you are anything like me, you often find yourself wondering, “Why can’t I aim my sniper rifle with gyroscopic controls?” It’s an obvious missed feature in the original game, and I am very happy to see them bring motion controls into the Overwatch meta! The Switch has you covered; you can now zero in your Widowmaker aim by tilting your console! What a calculated and effective control mechanic!

Maybe OWL should actually be played on the Switch, instead of the PC.

The motion controls are always less precise and useful than the standard controls. They can be fun for a bit, but they aren’t competitively viable. The gyroscopic feature reminds me of Duck Hunt for the NES… but it somehow feels worse.

So who is this for?

Overwatch on Switch is just Overwatch with:

A worse controller

Useless motion controls

Lower FPS

Equivalent of Dial-up internet

A 720p screen

At least it is portable..ish?

It seems to me that this game is less for gaming enthusiasts who play the Switch on the bus or while waiting for a doctor appointment, and more for those folks who own a Switch and no other gaming systems.

This is, without a doubt, the worst and most useless version of Overwatch. However, access to any version of Overwatch is awesome for the people who want it but haven’t owned a system where Overwatch is available until now.

I guess if some people play Fortnite on their phones, there is probably a demographic of people who want to play Overwatch on their Switch, and that’s chill.